If you're not offering up that data, you obviously have something to hide, so that's surely sufficient grounds for a warrant to tap your communications. :)
I once had a pair of police officers try to tell me that my refusal to let them search the vehicle was grounds for probable cause and would enable them to legally search my vehicle.
I laughed and pointed out that I'm not a teen and am quite familiar with my rights. They were visibly disappointed and told me that I was kicked out of Kansas and that I'd be arrested if I ever went back to Kansas. I giggled again but left and they followed me to the interstate slipway.
Sheriffs tried the same with me, also in Kansas. Threatened to impound my vehicle to search it, threatened me with arrest, ultimately let me go about my business because I had not violated the law or given a viable appearance of doing so. It was a very clear bully technique that fell apart when I calmly asserted my rights.
This certainly isn’t a localized tactic. I recall discussion of videographers printing statutes and employing them when threatened about recording police activity in public spaces. The frightening aspect (to me) is that some law enforcement officers genuinely appear to believe that they have authority that they don’t have.
The funny part was it was during one of my extended wanderlust adventures and I'd just finished spending a couple of weeks volunteering in Greenville, KS.
They'd just been almost totally destroyed by a tornado and I happened to be just a little ways away. So, lacking anything better to do, I bought some work clothes and went to help move rubble.
I was leaving the State and decided I'd nap for a few hours. I didn't feel like getting a hotel so I slept in the car. It turns out, I was sleeping in a factory parking lot and the people who came in to open it called the police - or so the cops said. It probably didn't help that I was in manual labor clothing, I'm not white, and I was in a new BMW. I probably looked like a drug dealer. That's still not an excuse.
Not to worry, I didn't let it reflect on the nice people of Kansas. But, after I'd spent a couple of weeks just giving my time to those in need, their cops harassed me and told me that I was banned from their State. I haven't been back but that's just coincidental.
You're being playful about this, but I'm legitimately worried about a future where job candidates are rejected purely because they didn't offer their social media identities or passwords.
I know this does happen sometimes now. What happens when saying "I don't have a facebook account" becomes a significant enough indicator that your're hiding your past?
I've heard stories of people at airport customs attempting to enter a country and having to try explain to the customs officers their lack of web presence or social media posts that they would otherwise use to corroborate and back up their intent for travel.
> You're being playful about this, but I'm legitimately worried about a future where job candidates are rejected purely because they didn't offer their social media identities or passwords.
Demanding a social media identity or password is a great idea if you want to paint a huge target on your back for a discrimination lawsuit.
Said social media account will contain a lot of information about whether or not you are a member of a protected class. Good luck proving that you didn't use it in your hiring decision.
I assume that many already do this. There's certainly a number of business opportunities in this, and it's only a matter of time before it turns into an arms race: people building fake social-media identities, other parties (governments, big internet players) deploy AI to distinguish these from real,... rinse and repeat ad infinitum.
If I still cared enough about writing software I'd probably do a startup around some of this. Instead I'm writing SF about it.
Do you have any sources that describe the asking for social media access in job applications? As a software engineer I am very lucky with the amount of jobs that is available to me, so if I were asked this I would walk out of the interview immediately. My only fear is for all those people who don't have a choice because they are part of a pool of hundreds of applications (psychology graduates for example, at least here in the Netherlands). Some employers just want to squeeze every last drop of dignity out of their employees, it is disgusting.
I've only read headlines and heard from friends working in larger cities for larger companies experiencing this, so obviously it's not something which is happening all the time everywhere, and based on my quick research it seems like a lot of news came out around 2012 about this issue: https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/your-facebook-p...
I would act the in the same manner you would as well, it's not worth working for a company if they don't have some very basic principles and it's a huge red flag. If they don't respect your privacy in the interview, they probably wont respect it in day to day business. But just like you explained we have to be careful because there's a lot of people who don't really have a choice, especially in today's job market here in Australia; a lot of people would have to decide between privacy and their ability to pay the power, rent, food, etc.
This reminds me of Ben Eltons book "Blind Faith". The protagonist is confronted because he is not streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy onto the community website. Clearly he must be hiding something.
