Many applicants or potential applicants have already discovered employers have begun checking Facebook pages and other social networking sites during the hiring process, allowing them to edit their profiles beforehand to make sure it is professional and appropriate as possible. However, just recently employers have begun asking for log in information, including emails and passwords from their applicants. This allows the employer to explore the applicant’s social networking profile to a great extent, with access to personal messages, private pictures and anything else hidden from the public. Although applicants may deny the request to supply their log in information, they may fairly not be accepted for the position they are applying for if they choose to do so.

Although looking over the applicant’s public social networking profile may be fair access, snooping into a person’s personal account and messages is unethical and morally incorrect.

Looking onto a person’s profile is one thing, as social networking users choose what they display to the public and what they choose not to. However, looking into a person’s personal account is completely different. People may choose to keep certain pictures private, yet they keep them stored on their Facebook so they are not lost from their computer. If they are responsible enough to hide what is not appropriate for the networking world to see, no one should be allowed to discover them against their will.

Not only can pictures, notes and updates be hidden from the public, but messages are also another factor that makes a person’s social networking account private. Just as phone conversations and text messages are not reviewed, neither should personal messages. Messages are meant to be kept within the party they occur in, whether that’s family, spouse, or friends.

Passwords are used for a reason, to be confidential and to keep private information private. Snooping into someone’s Facebook, or other social networking site is unethical and goes against a person’s right for privacy.

Employers should continue to look on applicant’s Facebook pages, in which they design for the public to see. However, looking within a person’s account and requesting username and password upon hiring is unethical and unfair. People may choose what is put on their public page, however, messages and other hidden information should not be considered during the hiring process within a business.