State Laws Ban Employer Access to Workforce's Social Media

Employee Benefit News quoted Jaklyn Wrigley, an associate in the Gulfport office, in an article on Louisiana joining a dozen other states in enacting laws that prohibit employers from requiring or penalizing workers who fail to fork over personal online account information. Thanks to the Personal Online Account Privacy Protection Act, all Louisiana-based public, private and educational employers are banned from retaliating against employees who do not provide usernames, passwords and other personal information.

“I don’t think it’s surprising that more states are enacting legislation,” says Jaklyn. “It’s a personal realm; that’s where you engage in communication with people that doesn’t have anything to do with work or school. So it makes sense – unless there is a reason for the employer or the university to really stick its nose into that aspect of your personal business – that it is protected without fear of some sort of retaliation.”

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