Those graphic facebook photos that reveal job candidates as the life of the party or the freewheeling blog posts they wrote in university do tend to shed some light on their personalities. But take great care when taking these peeks into private lives.
If you are using popular websites such as Google and Facebook in a business context, make sure you have the proper consents and other compliance controls in place. The simple act of looking up someone online for business reasons can lead to legal problems for a company. Even just typing someone’s name into Google — and who hasn’t? — can violate privacy laws. (See story above.)
“I think a lot of [recruiting] firms will look on LinkedIn and they’ll use those types of websites to try to target candidates,” says Kristine Qua, associate vice president, HR solutions, with Canadian Tire Financial Services in Welland, Ont. Qua adds that her company does not use social media to check out candidates.
Qua notes special vigilance is required when the question of these searches comes up because these websites are so accessible — especially Google. “It’s an easy search engine; why wouldn’t you?” Qua notes. “It’s at your fingertips. But it can be dangerous. And that’s why they say, ‘Be careful what you post on the Internet because it can follow you forever.’ So, if you don’t want the world to know it, don’t post it.”
GET CONSENT
Qua advises getting consent in all cases: “Whenever we do a check [on individuals], we ensure we get the candidate or the employee to sign off on an approval form.”
Her company employs people “whose sole job is to ensure that we’re not violating customer or any sort of privacy acts,” says Qua. “We do privacy audits to make sure that we’re compliant.”
However, there are some ways to conduct social media checks without breaching privacy laws. Consent and careful information management are the keys. “You need to get people’s consent,” says Soma Ray-Ellis, an employment lawyer with Himelfarb Proszanski LLP in Toronto. “Privacy laws are all based on consent and disclosure.”
Many employers probably have collected personal information online but don’t necessarily understand the risks involved, adds Ray-Ellis: “The liabilities are both legal and human resources-related. Often, these websites have inaccurate information. Second, you could be relying on defamatory content. And if you forward that to someone else, you’re now publishing defamatory material and you may be liable yourself.”
Websites with a professional slant, such as LinkedIn, can hold their own special traps, Ray-Ellis cautions: “The difficulty in using those things is that they’re often skewed — either people carry out hate campaigns or love campaigns. And that’s the problem with a lot of these websites. [The information] is often artificially manufactured — not just by the individual but also by third parties.”
Sometimes, Google can be used in a limited fashion. Ray-Ellis notes that senior job prospects are often Googled and they usually take care to ensure the information about them on the web is accurate. However, that should not be done until the interview has been set up. Otherwise, you could be leaving yourself open to accusations that the Googled information was part of any decision not to interview, especially if images are involved.
If sensitive financial information is gathered online, care should be taken to ensure it is gathered with consent, that the associated records are carefully managed and destroyed when they are no longer needed.
DOS AND DON’TS
Using social media to research a job candidate can also lead to a human rights complaint. There have been court cases in which candidates have alleged that they’ve been discriminated against at the application stage due to the unauthorized collection of personal information.
There is also the risk of gathering irrelevant information that is highly prejudicial. “What if someone is a member of a white supremacist group or something like that?” Qua asks. “Things could come up like that when you search Google, and it could turn out to be not even the right person.”
Under privacy laws, you are permitted to collect only personal information that a reasonable person considers appropriate in the circumstances, so employers, current or potential, must ensure the information is relevant.
“Getting access to personal information such as race, family status, any disabilities and religion could potentially expose you to a complaint that the [potential] employee didn’t get an interview because of these factors,” Ray-Ellis points out. “A resulting complaint to the privacy commission can lead to reputational damages for the company and has a demoralizing impact on the employees.”
Another problem could arise if you are accused of collecting a third-party’s personal information without consent via a social networking website. An example might include the Facebook page of someone who is not the subject of the search.
Indeed, Facebook can be one of the most dangerous websites to search, from a privacy perspective, because of its clear orientation toward personal rather than commercial matters.
In general, use common sense. “Using social media websites to confirm that what someone has told you, in terms of their professional identification, is accurate — you can do that without worry,” says Ray-Ellis. But she also strongly advises taking the time to speak to former employers and reviewing somebody’s published work or media interviews.
And then there’s always the good, old-fashioned and far less intrusive method of asking them yourself. IE