FACEBOOK

Facebook As A Tool To Conduct Background Check

[Date of Submission]Facebook As A Tool To Conduct Background Check

Introduction

Since great majorities of employer are increasingly turning to social media like Facebook to investigate the background of current and prospective employees, a debate is going on in academic as well business circle about the legality of such practices. Like every debate, there are two opposing point of views as some consider it as a breach of employee's digital privacy where as there are those who favor the practice on the grounds that it is essential for the employer to know about the character straits of his / her current or prospective employees. Moreover, the favoring side also argues that as long as social networking websites are public and there should not be any objection to employers visiting the public profiles of their employees (Slovensky & Ross, 2012).

Long ago, employers in many states were barred from requiring photographs or inquiring about the marital status of job applicants in order to avoid accusations that it might result in candidates being rejected for discriminatory reasons. Today, many social networking websites make this information available for the employers, thereby renewing the old debate and accusations. Moreover, social networking websites like Facebook also sometimes provides information about one's political views or affiliation, an important factor that employers are prohibited from taking into consideration in many regions (Preston, 2011). This paper aims at discussing the question whether employers should be allowed to view Facebook pages of prospective or current employees in light of employees' right to digital privacy.

Discussion

Undoubtedly, the issue of privacy has become one of the most complex and delicate issues of the contemporary world called “digital age”, especially the multiplicity of values and factors that are usually involved in them. A research study, published in the American scientific journal showed that from easily accessible information readily available on different social media such as Facebook, the employer can identify with a high degree of accuracy a series of sensitive personal data such as age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, the use of drugs, and even aspects of personality such as the degree of happiness, IQ or the experience of a divorce in the family (Sánchez Abril, et al., 2012).

Researchers at Cambridge's Psychometrics Centre, in collaboration with Microsoft Research Cambridge, analyzed data from the activity on Facebook performed by more than 58,000 volunteers who have offered details on their “Like” on their demographic profile and the results of psychometric tests. Comparing these data it was possible to create a statistical model that can predict a series of personal information only from the “like” in an automatic way. The model proved to be extremely accurate: 88% of cases identified membership of the male users, in 95% of cases proved to be correct in providing the distinction between African Americans and whites, while in 85% of cases it was possible to distinguish carefully between Republicans and Democrats (Slovensky & Ross, ...