Keep your passwords

LITTLE ROCK — Silicon Widgets Inc. doesn’t want to hire a new VP for marketing who’s all over YouTube with hilarious videos lampooning the uselessness of Widgets. We get that. So in addition to reference calls and record checks, HR departments would be crazy not to add a vigorous Internet search to check on what’s out there for all the world to see.

But asking candidates for passwords to sites such as Facebook? No way. That’s just wrong. The newly surfaced practice is an invasion of privacy and an invitation to all sorts of mischief by employers who have shown, just by asking, that they lack respect for employees.

Nobody is more appalled than Facebook, which has been trying to offer more privacy options. It sent out a reminder of its terms of use over the weekend, but company policies don’t carry enough legal weight to stop this. And no website privacy system or instruction does any good if users are compelled to give up their passwords. It’s like giving prospective employers a key to your house, or at least your post office box.

It’s really a case of employment law needing to catch up with the Internet age. Passwords give employers access to information they’re prohibited from asking about, from relationships to political views. The laws also should apply to schools and universities. They’d never demand to open a student’s paper mail.

Employers or schools Googling an applicant is fine. If anybody can see the candidate’s side-splitting Widget videos, then they’re fair game. But asking for passwords to private sites is wrong and should be prohibited.