Wednesday, June 22, 2011

A Reminder: Hide Your Information on Facebook

Posted By on Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 12:30 PM

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Maybe you're not the sort that posts your drunken escapades or other wildly embarrassing moments online, but it might be worth taking a look at your Facebook privacy settings, especially since an employment screening company will be archiving all Facebook information left public for their use:

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has given the thumbs up to Social Intelligence Corp, which keeps files of Facebook users’ posts as part of a background-checking service for screening job applicants.

A spokesperson for Social Intelligence has clarified in an email:

Data is archived purely for compliance reasons and not used for any other purposes. This is to provide a verifiable chain-of-custody in case the information is ever needed for legal reasons. Archived data is never used for new screens.

As per our policies and obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the only information we collect on job applicants is employer defined criteria that is legally allowable in the hiring process. Examples of this include racist remarks, sexually explicit photos or videos, or illegal activity such as drug use

We are not building a database on individuals that will be evaluated each time they apply for a job and potentially could be used adversely even if they have cleaned up their profiles. It is important for job applicants to understand we are not storing their historical information to be used against them the next time they apply for a job.

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