John Timmer reports on the city of Bozeman’s frightening new anti-privacy policy:
“The city of Bozeman Montana…is now requesting that potential employees hand over the login credentials for any social networking sites they frequent”
Note this is not a request to be added as a friend, but your personal and private account login information.
“Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.” the form reads. But Bozeman isn’t simply interested in finding out where to look for potentially embarrassing personal details; the city wants full disclosure, since the form demands username and password information for each. City employees will apparently be able to dig through any information applicants have put online, regardless of whether it’s accessible to the public.
This sounds insanely scary to me. I don’t think I have anything to hide from anybody on my facebook, twitter, or blogs, but if someone asked me to give them my login credentials to any of those, I’d tell them to take a flying leap. Apparently, I’m the only one:
“…Sullivan indicated that nobody has objected to the city’s request for login credentials.”