I love how, even without a constitution, things like this would never fly in Europe, yet here in the US, WITH a constitution, we get these events taking place.
It's almost like the existence of the constitution encourages challenges to privacy. The "if you had a defense but didn't use it then you must be okay with what's happening" thinking.
In UK we have the Criminal Records Bureau who provide a full record check for people in certain occupations (working with children, prison/police/uniformed services &c)
I have three current CRB 'disclosures' as I worked for three employers for a brief period last year. A full disclosure is not limited to convictions but can include cautions and other information that the police may have. Bit more concrete than some prison manager having a quick look at a facebook profile.
"Aside from the free speech concerns, Shear also thinks colleges take on unnecessary liability when they aggressively monitor student posts."
Yes, I'd have thought there was a huge vicarious liability/duty of care issue with this. I don't want to know what my students put on their facebook accounts!
"Goemann also noted that the rush to social media monitoring raises an often overlooked legal concern: It's against Facebook's Terms of Service."
That occurred to me as well as soon as I read past the first few sentences. Many people on this forum provide Web services. Do you actually have any way/interest in enforcing this aspect of the typical ToS or is it just there as some kind of protection for you?
That would be my initial objection too. There's no real point in going beyond that. If the FB ToS have any legal weight then it would be most likely unlawful for me to share my FB login details with anyone.
An employer who attempted to do that and then sacked you would be performing constructive dismissal and probably be in breach of the [letter of the] Computer Misuse Act for attempting to gain access to a computer system without proper authorisation.
A company that followed through and consulted your FB would then be holding private information on your friends and there are all sorts of regulations that they're supposed to comply with then. Presumably they'd also be in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights @ Art.8 (at least).
TBH it sound quite fun. One could create a FB profile as a honey-trap - access would provide the evidence for a willing barrister to take a large company to the cleaners ... or that's how it seems.
I think getting sued has become commonplace in the US, up to a point that institutions and corporations don't really care. If there is money to be had, that is. These kind of things get tried because they seem to offer some value, and the experiment keeps running until someone sues. In Finland, getting sued can tarnish your reputation quit badly, were you an individual or an institution. Somehow we still care about that.
About this thing in special. Finland has a pretty strict law against privacy violations in job interviews. You ask a wrong question as an interviewer and the whole recruitment process might be at risk. Of course you can ask about hobbies and whatnots, but anything too private may get you a "I don't feel like answering that" as an answer. And then you are in trouble. But that works just fine for us. A job interview is supposed to be about the work, not the applicants past time.
It's almost like the existence of the constitution encourages challenges to privacy. The "if you had a defense but didn't use it then you must be okay with what's happening" thinking.