Aee! Bozeman, for shame!
Posted by editor at 1:07 pm in workplace notes

If you want to work for the city of Bozeman, Montana, you have to make your on-line networking usernames AND passwords available.

Aee! Because why would anyone possibly want any privacy?

And, thanks, Scott!

Aee! Bozeman, for shame! has 5 Comments

  1. And it’s not just if you DO work for them, but if you are just applying.

    There’s no way in hell I would give them my passwords, that’s a dangerous security breach and akin to giving out your social security number, in this day and age. Anyone who does so is crazy.

  2. But you’re supposed to regularly change passwords. So… I’d give them passwords. And when they comment that they don’t work, point out that it’s proof that I practice safe computing practices, changing my passwords regularly so that the account is not accessible by anyone who should not have access.

    And if they get pissy about that, then there’s a court case.

  3. I applied for a job recently where I was asked to provide the home and work numbers for all of my references. There’s a reason why I provide only work numbers for each of these people and it’s so they can have some privacy at home.

  4. The City of Bozeman MT has stopped using this policy — it’s amazing how how folks stop acting like jerks when they get bad PR.

    Also, giving out your account password is a terms of service violation for many social networking sites — Facebook’s TOS says the following under the “Registration and Account Security” section:

    “You will not share your password, let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.”

  5. Sometimes I love the Internet for its ability to shame.

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