Following up on Monday's blog post, here's the second news story raising new legal issues regarding online privacy. Companies are utilizing algorithms to track down potential employees who do not fit the typical mold. If you have your Facebook privacy settings on lockdown, you just may miss the opportunity of a lifetime as this data-gathering method measures how well you interact on social media sites as one factor in assessing whether you'd be a good fit for a company:
In addition to general online privacy issues, how do you advise your company from an employment perspective if they're the company doing the hiring? Try these resources for starters:
Of late, growing numbers of academics and entrepreneurs are applying Big Data to human resources and the search for talent, creating a field called work-force science. Gild is trying to see whether these technologies can also be used to predict how well a programmer will perform in a job. The company scours the Internet for clues: Is his or her code well-regarded by other programmers? Does it get reused? How does the programmer communicate ideas? How does he or she relate on social media sites?In other words, the company trolls the Internet for information about potential employees, applies an algorithm to what is found, and creates a profile to suggest whether the person would be a good match for a particular company.
In addition to general online privacy issues, how do you advise your company from an employment perspective if they're the company doing the hiring? Try these resources for starters:
- The Employment Law Sourcebook: A Compendium of Employment-Related Laws and Policy Documents
- Information Security and Privacy: A Practical Guide for Global Executives, Lawyers and Technologists
- Closing the Ambiguity in Federal Privacy Law as Employers Cyber-Snoop Beyond the Workplace (on Westlaw)
- Intrusive Monitoring: Employee Privacy Expectations are Reasonable in Europe, Destroyed in the United States (on Westlaw)