{"id":1936,"date":"2013-09-17T16:33:25","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T16:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1936"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:00","slug":"new-jersey-passes-social-media-privacy-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/new-jersey-passes-social-media-privacy-law\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey Passes Social Media Privacy Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, September 17, 2013, by Stella Kreilkamp
\nIn late August, New Jersey governor Chris Christie signed a social media privacy law, which goes into effect December 1, 2013.\u00a0 New Jersey is the twelfth state to do so, along with Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and Washington.\u00a0 Social media privacy has become an increasingly widespread concern in recent years.\u00a0 While there is no expectation of privacy<\/a> for information in the public domain, employers cannot legally use that information when hiring.
\nUnder the new bill, A-2878<\/a>, employers are prohibited from requiring current or prospective employees to disclose their usernames and passwords for any personal accounts or social media sites.\u00a0 Under the law, a personal account is defined as, \u201can account, service, or profile on a social networking website that is used by a current or prospective employee exclusively for personal communications unrelated to any business purposes of the employer.\u201d\u00a0 Personal accounts do not include accounts of employees that relate to business.\u00a0 Employers are also not allowed to require employees to disclose whether they have accounts on social media sites. If employers violate the law, they are subject to a civil penalty of $1,000 fines for the first offense and $2,500 fines for any subsequent violations. \u00a0The bill also states that employers cannot retaliate when an employee opposes any violation of the act.
\nThe statute includes exceptions that allow for employers to access their employees\u2019 social media accounts in certain situations.\u00a0 For example, employers can still conduct investigations into possible \u201cwork-related employee misconduct based on the receipt of specific information about activity on a personal account by an employee.\u201d\u00a0 Employers can also still investigate \u201can employee\u2019s actions based on the receipt of specific information about the unauthorized transfer of an employer\u2019s proprietary information, confidential information or financial data to a personal account by an employee.\u201d<\/p>\n

In late August, New Jersey governor Chris Christie signed a social media privacy law, which goes into effect December 1, 2013.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The law is considered \u201cbusiness-friendly<\/a>\u201d because Governor Christie conditionally vetoed a previous version of the bill, which was more employee-friendly.\u00a0 One big difference<\/a> between the two versions is that the previous version prohibited employers from asking about whether the employee or prospective employee had a social media account.\u00a0 Also, the original bill provided employees with a private cause of action.
\nEmployers have until December 1, 2013 to implement any changes.\u00a0 Until then, they should make sure that their current policies do not conflict with the new bill.
\nThe number of states enacting social media privacy laws has been quickly increasing over the last few years.\u00a0 According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, \u201clegislation has been introduced or is pending in at least 36 states.\u201d\u00a0 Last year, Congress introduced the Social Networking Online Protection Act<\/a>; while it was not passed, it was reintroduced this year.\u00a0 The New Jersey bill is one of many that will likely be introduced in the near future.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, September 17, 2013, by Stella Kreilkamp In late August, New Jersey governor Chris Christie signed a social media privacy law, which goes into effect December 1, 2013.\u00a0 New Jersey is the twelfth state to do so, along with Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and Washington.\u00a0 Social media privacy …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7581,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions\/7581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}