BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 25
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 16, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY
Bob Wieckowski, Chair
AB 25 (Campos) - As Amended: March 14, 2013
SUBJECT : PUBLIC EMPLOYERS: EMPLOYEE SOCIAL MEDIA SITES
KEY ISSUES :
1)SHOULD LAST YEAR'S LANDMARK LAW BARRING employers from
requiring or requesting employees or prospective employees to
disclose their PRIVATE username and passwords TO ACCESS THEIR
PERSONAL SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS BE CLARIFIED THAT IT APPLIES TO
PUBLIC AS WELL AS PRIVATE EMPLOYERS, AS WAS THE APPARENT
ASSUMPTION WHEN IT WAS ENACTED LAST YEAR?
2)Should there be a broad NEW law enforcement exemption ADDED TO
this important employee privacy protection LAW when no such
exemption APPARENTLY exists WITH similar laws in other states,
WHERE such an exemption COULD VERY WELL be FOUND TO BE
UNconstitutional, AND WHERE IT WOULD RISK A "SLIPPERY SLOPE"
OF MANY OTHER PUBLIC EMPLOYEES LOSING THE LAW'S PRIVACY
PROTECTIONS IN THE FUTURE?
FISCAL EFFECT : As currently in print this bill is keyed fiscal.
SYNOPSIS
Last year this Committee unanimously passed the author's AB
1844, which ultimately was approved by the Legislature with
bipartisan broad support and signed by the Governor. That bill
prohibits an employer from requiring or requesting an employee
or job applicant to disclose a username or password for the
purpose of accessing his or her personal social media, to access
his or her personal social media in the presence of the
employer, or to divulge any personal social media content. When
that bill proceeded through the Legislature, it was assumed in
the legislative analyses that the measure was intended to apply
to both public and private employers. However after the bill
was chaptered, the author learned there is some ambiguity in the
current case law as to whether the Legislature needs to
explicitly state that such measures, when placed in the Labor
Code, are intended to apply to public as well as private
employers. Thus although Labor Code section 980 could be found
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to apply to public employers, this bill therefore merely seeks
to do what was assumed it did last year -- clarify that public
employees as well as their private counterparts are covered by
this important consumer privacy protection. The measure is
supported by privacy protection groups and some labor
organizations.
However various law enforcement organizations oppose this
clarification of legislative intent unless an exemption is added
permitting them to require or request law enforcement employees
or applicants to disclose their private username or password to
access their personal social media, to access personal social
media in their presence, or to divulge personal social media
content. They contend forced access to these "keys" to open
individuals' personal social media accounts is needed for them
to be able to most effectively weed out potentially dangerous or
unmeritorious job applicants or current employees to maximize
public safety.
However it appears that not only would a special "carve out" for
law enforcement be unprecedented in such laws across the
country, it would single out a broad group of public employees
who are already subject to rigorous background reviews to
protect public safety. In addition, such a broad special
exemption very well could be found to be unconstitutional under
the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This is because
the exemption would appear to allow law enforcement to intrude
upon a reasonable expectation of privacy that law enforcement
employees or prospective employees hold in their personal
usernames and passwords. By its very nature, a search of a
user's entire social media profile, through forced access to
their username and password, would appear to be an unreasonable
governmental intrusion because of the inherent inability to
properly limit the breadth, or scope, of such a search to only
that specific information relevant to his or her fitness for
employment. Given the significant amount of private information
contained on social media accounts, including for example race,
sexual orientation and age (all protected characteristics under
the Fair Employment and Housing Act), this bill, the author
argues, without such an exemption, is essential to helping
protect the rights of public employees across California.
SUMMARY : Seeks to clarify the Legislature's intent last year
that the prohibition barring employers from requiring or
requesting an employee or prospective employee to disclose their
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private username or password for the purpose of accessing their
personal social media accounts applies to both public and
private employers. Specifically, this bill :
1)Prohibits public employers from requiring or requesting an
employee or applicant for employment to disclose a username or
password for the purpose of accessing personal social media,
to access personal social media in the presence of the
employer, or to divulge any personal social media content.
2)Defines, for the purposes of this chapter, "public employer"
as the state, a city, a county, or a district.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Prohibits an [private] employer from requiring or requesting
an employee or applicant for employment to disclose a username
or password for the purpose of accessing personal social
media, to access personal social media in the presence of the
employer, or to divulge any personal social media content.
(Labor Code Section 980.)
2)Prohibits employers from limiting employee's political
participation or influencing employees' political beliefs.
(Labor Code Section 1101.)
3)Prohibits employers from requiring applicants to submit to
polygraph, lie detector, or other similar tests as a condition
of employment or continued employment. (Labor Code Section
432.2.)
4)Permits employers, under certain specified circumstances, to
investigate the credit history of prospective employees.
(Civil Code Section 1785 et seq.; Labor Code Section 1024.5.)
5)Permits employers to hire investigators to examine the
criminal history and past civil liabilities of prospective
employees. (Civil Code Section 1786 et seq.)
6)Under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, limits
the information potential employers and potential housing
providers can request of applicants. (Gov. Code Section
12920.)
7)Provides, in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
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that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or Affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized." (U.S. Const. 4th Amend.)
COMMENTS : Last year this Committee unanimously passed the
author's AB 1844, which ultimately was approved by the
Legislature with bipartisan broad support and signed by the
Governor. That bill prohibits an employer from requiring or
requesting an employee or job applicant to disclose a username
or password for the purpose of accessing his or her personal
social media, to access his or her personal social media in the
presence of the employer, or to divulge any personal social
media content. When that bill proceeded through the
Legislature, it was assumed in the legislative analyses that the
measure was intended to apply to both public and private
employers. However after the bill was chaptered, the author was
advised that current case law requires the Legislature to
explicitly state that such measures, when placed in the Labor
Code, are intended to apply to public as well as private
employers. Although this interpretation may be disputed, and
there are many Labor Code provisions that do not explicitly
state their application to public employees but are nevertheless
understood to apply equally to public and private employers,
this bill merely seeks to do what was assumed the Legislature
did last year -- clarify that public employees as well as their
private counterparts are covered by this important consumer
privacy protection.
According to the author:
AB 25 seeks to protect the privacy rights of public
employees and those seeking jobs in the public sector.
Employers are increasingly asking, and sometimes
requiring employees or applicants to provide access to
their social media and online profiles. This is a
tremendous invasion of privacy. Asking for this
information is akin to requiring someone show you
their personal photo album or allowing you to
eavesdrop on their private conversations. Simply
because personal information is more readily available
than in the past doesn't open the door to employers'
demands to have access to it. Perhaps most
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importantly, the tweets, posts, or profile of an
individual are no indication of whether or not they
are qualified for a position.
Labor Code section 980 : Last year, in response to the world's
exploding "technology revolution", Labor Code section 980 was
enacted to protect employees' and prospective employees' right
to privacy in the workplace. As evidenced in numerous news
reports, a growing number of employers, reportedly, were asking
their employees and prospective interviewees for access to their
individual social media profiles. The Los Angeles Times, for
example, noted that personal social media profiles frequently
provide information about the social media user's sexual
orientation, religion, ethnic background, age and marital
status-information employers are prohibited from requiring
employees to disclose under Government Code section 12920. ("A
Social Media Trend We Don't Like" Los Angeles Times, March 28,
2012.)
Also following suit, Maryland, Illinois and Michigan, passed
laws last year prohibiting employers from requiring or
requesting access to an employees' personal social media
accounts. In addition, twenty-eight states, including, but not
limited to, Iowa, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and
Washington, have introduced legislation to prevent employers
from requiring disclosure of, or requesting access to, personal
social media accounts.
Specifically, Labor Code section 980 prohibits private employers
from requiring employees or prospective employees to disclose
their private username or password for the purpose of accessing
the individuals' personal social media accounts.
There Appears to Be Legal Ambiguity as to Whether Public
Employers Are Currently Subject to the Prohibitions of Labor
Code Section 980 : As noted above, when that bill proceeded
through the Legislature, it was assumed in the legislative
analyses that the measure was intended to apply to both public
and private employers. However after the bill was chaptered,
the author learned there is some ambiguity in the current case
law as to whether the Legislature needs to explicitly state that
such measures, when placed in the Labor Code, are intended to
apply to public as well as private employers. Thus although
Labor Code section 980 could be found to apply to public
employers, this bill therefore merely seeks to do what was
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assumed it did last year -- clarify that public employees as
well as their private counterparts are covered by this important
consumer privacy protection.
Similar Efforts to Extend Protections to Public Employees in
Other States : Last year, Illinois enacted H.B. 3782, which
amended the Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act to prohibit
certain inquiries by an employer. This year they are amending
the Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act to redefine employer,
to include any unit of the State or local government.
(Importantly, as to be discussed more fully below, that measure
does not contain any exemption for law enforcement agencies.)
Similar 'Law Enforcement Exemption' Efforts in Other States :
Several states have introduced legislation that would prohibit
private and public employers from requiring or requesting
prospective employees and employees to disclose their private
username or password for the purpose of accessing personal
social media accounts, which include 'law enforcement'
exemptions concerning (1) conducting background checks for
employment and/or (2) in the course of law enforcement officer
conduct investigations.
The State of Hawaii introduced H.B. No. 713, which prohibits
employers from requiring, requesting, suggesting, or causing
employees and potential employees to disclose social media
usernames or passwords. H.B. No. 713 would apply to both public
and private employers. Several law enforcement agencies opposed
H.B. No. 713, including the Maui Police Department. In their
letter of opposition to H.B. No. 713, the Maui Police Department
stated, "in the interest of public safety and the integrity of
the law enforcement agencies that [H.B. No. 713] would affect ?
a police applicant's background check should be extensive and
thorough?"
In response to law enforcement opposition, H.B. No. 713 was
amended to include a similar "law enforcement" exemption,
addressing employee applicant background checks, which allowed
law enforcement to request or require an employee or potential
employee to access a personal account in the presence of a law
enforcement agency employer, or to disclose any personal account
information. However, on March 1, 2013, the "law enforcement"
exemption was removed from H.B. No. 713.
The Committee was unable to confirm why the 'law enforcement'
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exemption was removed from H.B. No. 713. However, it is
significant that the 'law enforcement' exemption was first
amended to include the exemption, in response to opposition from
law enforcement, and later removed from the bill. This may
suggest that the Hawaii Legislature ultimately concluded that
this exemption would not be a good idea.
Background Investigation Screening Tools of Prospective Law
Enforcement Personnel are Extensive. As it stands, law
enforcement requires prospective employees to submit to an
aggressive background investigation process to protect public
safety in order to gain employment as a public safety officer,
which may include completion of a detailed history statement,
submission to a polygraph, and other requirements. For example,
the hiring process for entry-level police officer candidates for
the City of Roseville, in Placer County, includes a background
investigation. The background investigation process includes a
completion of a detailed personal history statement in the
applicant's own handwriting, they are required to submit
original certified copies of birth certificates, high school and
college transcripts, and an interview by a background
investigator. In addition, the applicant is required to submit
fingerprints and submit to a CVSA, a computerized voice stress
analysis test, similar to a polygraph.
Law enforcement applicants with the Los Angeles Police
Department are required to complete a personal history form as
part of the background investigation portion of the selection
process, which includes providing detailed information regarding
prior employment, past residences, education, military service,
personal information related to finances including current
assets and liabilities, tattoo information, marital status,
children, a list of family members that will be contacted and
asked to comment upon the applicant's suitability for a position
in law enforcement and a list of seven references, not including
family members, that have known the applicant for at least two
years.
Thus, it would appear that already existing rigorous background
investigation screening tools would reveal any existing
discriminatory animus or other dangerous propensities of
prospective applicants to law enforcement agencies.
The Proposed Broad 'Law Enforcement' Exemption Appears to Be a
Very Broad Exclusion for Public Employee Privacy Rights Indeed:
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In opposing this measure, various law enforcement organizations
request the following broad amendment be added to the measure:
"This section shall not apply to any position within a criminal
justice agency, as that term is defined in section 13101 of the
Penal Code, or to any individual working on a temporary or
permanent basis in a criminal justice agency whether on a
contract basis or on loan from another governmental unit."
Under this extremely broad exemption, it would appear to exclude
from the bill's privacy protections sworn peace officers
carrying weapons, as well as many other public employees working
in a criminal justice agency whether on a contract basis or on
loan, including such individuals as janitorial staff, landscape
and maintenance staff, laboratory technicians, computer
programmers, photographers and graphic designers, and
administrative staff, including secretaries, typists,
accountants and auditors. Apparently to ensure that criminal
justice agencies can appropriately screen applicants in order to
protect public safety, the proposed amendment would effectively
provide that any employee of a criminal justice agency forfeits
any right to privacy. This proposed amendment seeks to rob
public employees of their constitutional and statutorily
protected privacy rights-all in the name of public safety.
The Proposed Exemption Also Very Well Would Be Found to Be Per
Se Unconstitutional : Not only would the proposed law
enforcement exemption reportedly be unprecedented across the
country in these kinds of privacy protection laws, it would
also, as noted above, potentially be found to be
unconstitutional.
Specifically, law enforcement is seeking an exemption to the
public employer prohibition, which specifies that Labor Code
Section 980 shall not apply to law enforcement agencies (1)
conducting background checks for applicants for employment or
(2) in the course of ordinary law enforcement officer conduct
investigations.
As noted, the Fourth Amendment provides that "the right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not
be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or Affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things
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to be seized." (U.S. Const. 4th Amend.)
According to the Supreme Court in Katz v. United States, a
person has a constitutionally protected reasonable expectation
of privacy from an electronic intrusion into a place that is
private-an invasion into a constitutionally protected area by
federal authorities is presumptively unreasonable in the absence
of a search warrant supported by probable cause. (Katz v.
United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347 (concurrence Harlan, J.).)
Under the 'reasonable expectation of privacy' test, a person
must have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of
privacy, and the expectation must be one that society is
prepared to recognize as "reasonable." (Ibid.)
Additionally, the Court noted that the Fourth Amendment protects
people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the
public, even in his own home, is not a subject of Fourth
Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private,
even in an area accessible to the public, may be
constitutionally protected. (Id. at 351.) (See United States
v. Ganoe (9th Cir. 2008) 538 F.3d 1117, 1127 [finding no
reasonable expectation of privacy in personal computer files
accessible to anyone using the peer-to-peer filing trading
network.].) (See also United States v. Gines-Perez (2002) 214
F.Supp.2d 205, 224-26 [finding no reasonable expectation of
privacy in a photograph available on a publicly accessible
website.].)
In this instance, a prospective employee's or current employee's
privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment will be analyzed as to
whether an employee has a 'reasonable expectation of privacy.'
An employee would not, for example, appear to hold a 'reasonable
expectation of privacy' in the content of their social media
page (i.e. a post to their Facebook Wall) because they have
typically knowingly exposed this content to the public.
However, the fact that Facebook, for example, requires a
username, and is password-protected, would appear strongly to
lean in favor of a court finding that some form of 'reasonable
privacy expectation' exists specifically in the 'username and
password' itself-which is distinguishable from any social media
content available to the public to see.
It is true, however, that government employees' Fourth Amendment
privacy interests are weighed against the employer's legitimate
business interests. (See City of Ontario v. Quon (2010) 130
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S.Ct. 2619, 2632-33.) (See also O'Connor v. Ortega (1987) 480
U.S. 709, 725-26.) In O'Connor, the Supreme Court held that
public employer intrusions on the constitutionally protected
privacy interest of employees for non-investigatory,
work-related purposes should be judged by the standard of
reasonableness under all circumstances. (O'Connor, 480 U.S. at
725-26.)
Most recently, in City of Ontario v. Quon, the Supreme Court
rearticulated the standard when determining the reasonableness
of the government's search of a police officer's text messages
in his government-provided pager for the purposes of
investigating potential misconduct. (Quon, 130 S.Ct at
2632-33.) The Court held the search of the text message, which
was tailored to investigate whether the text-messaging plan
needed to be increased or whether the overages during work hours
were personal in nature was reasonable in purpose and scope.
(Ibid.)
However it also appears that a law enforcement agency's
intrusion on a constitutionally protected privacy interest-in
this instance a username and password-must be reasonable under
all circumstances, given the search's breadth in scope. An
exemption provided for law enforcement to conduct a background
check via social media on potential employees would appear to be
unreasonable because it would provide law enforcement with
overly broad, and completely unfettered access to personal
information that is already statutorily protected under the
state's Fair Employment and Housing Act, including their sexual
orientation, religion, and marital status. Moreover, access to
this protected personal information through gaining the "keys"
to the employee's or applicant's personal social media sites
would also likely be found to be without any relevant relation
to his or her fitness for employment in law enforcement.
Indeed, the inadvertent access to this protected information,
inherently inseparable from other personal information, would
appear to be a direct and serious violation of the state's
anti-discrimination laws.
Additionally, the sought-after exemption providing for law
enforcement agencies in the course of a law enforcement
investigation to request or require an employee to disclose his
or her username or password would appear to be unnecessary and
perhaps confusing. This is because, under the current statutory
scheme in Labor Code Section 980, the law already provides a
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broad "investigation exemption," whereby a law enforcement
employer would not be prohibited from requesting an employee to
divulge personal social media reasonably believed to be relevant
to an investigation of allegations of employee misconduct or an
employee's violations of the law. (See Labor Code Section
980(c).) An employee could deny such a request, at which point
the law enforcement agency could seek a warrant.
Finally, it should be acknowledged that law enforcement agencies
have existed for hundreds of years before the advent of social
media, and they have effectively screened officers and
applicants to do a great job protecting public safety. Existing
law permits employers to screen numerous aspects of a
prospective employee's background, including screening
employees' past civil liabilities, criminal records and securing
a full background check-tools that appear to be very sufficient
in efforts to protect an employer's interest in hiring a person
qualified for the job.
In conjunction with their broad current authority to conduct
background checks and monitor officer conduct, it is therefore
reasonable to query, as noted by the bill's privacy group
supporters, whether the potential violation of their employees'
or applicants' reasonable expectations of privacy is required to
effectively accomplish effective screening and monitoring.
The Requested Exemption is Distinguishable from Existing Law
Enforcement Exemptions for Carrying Concealed Firearms . Certain
classes of persons, such as law enforcement officers are
exempted from the operation of the prohibition against carrying
concealed firearms, and including certain retired law
enforcement officers who during the course and scope of their
employment as peace officers were authorized to, and did, carry
firearms. (Penal Code Section 25450.) These existing
exemptions are justified based on the rationale that peace
officers in the course of their duty to protect the public
should be permitted to carry concealed weapons. However, unlike
the proposed law enforcement exemption, the exemption provided
for in Section 25450 to the Penal Code is limited to only peace
officers-it does not permit any employee of a criminal justice
agency to carry a concealed weapon under the broad banner of
'public safety.'
The right to privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution differs significantly from the Second
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Amendment guarantee of an individual's right to possess and
carry weapons. Under the Second Amendment, the right to possess
and carry a weapon may be reasonably limited, such as
prohibitions for certain classes of people, including felons and
the mentally ill. However, under the Fourth Amendment the right
to privacy is unyielding, even when the interests of public
safety are paramount-the protections of the Fourth Amendment do
not fade when one becomes a public employee of a law enforcement
agency. If we were to proceed otherwise, any public employee of
a law enforcement agency would effectively forfeit all of their
privacy interests. Indeed, under the theory supporting such a
broad privacy exemption from privacy protections for law
enforcement, it would appear there are effectively no privacy
rights or protections for any one working in law enforcement at
all - even those anti-discrimination rights explicitly protected
in the state's Fair Employment and Housing Act.
The Requested Exemption Clearly Appears to Open Up A Potential
"Slippery Slope" : Exempting a broad number of public employees
in law enforcement from the law's privacy protections would also
appear to create a substantial risk that such an exemption would
inevitably, and likely quickly, lead to many other public
employers seeking similar exemptions from the law's privacy
protections, such as teachers and social workers, and perhaps
many others, on the grounds that many if not most public
employees work in jobs that could affect public safety. It
could therefore become very difficult for policy-makers to
effectively draw a line where it is clear that a particular
public job does not somehow potentially affect the public's
health, safety and welfare. This may be why other states that
have similar laws have not created any such exemptions, for once
done, drawing - and maintaining - the line would appear to be
very difficult.
Need to Return Bill Back to Committee in the Event of Future
Amendment: Pursuant to the Committee's rules and tradition,
should this bill pass and face subsequent amendments the author
has agreed to bring the bill back for another hearing and
further consideration.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : In support of this bill, the Southwest
California Legislative Council, a coalition of the Temecula
Valley, Murrieta, Lake Elsinore and Wildomar Chambers of
Commerce and more than 2,200 represented business, states, that
it "is a measure that would encourage job growth through
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clarifying employers' duties, or lack thereof, with regard to
social media and social networking sites as applied to
applicants and existing employees. This legislation will help
position California for economic recovery."
California Professional Firefighters, the state council of the
International Association of Firefighters, representing over
30,000 career firefighters and emergency medical personnel
statewide, offers its support of AB 25 and believes, consistent
with existing provisions under the law, public employers,
"including those that employ California's state and local
government firefighters," should be prohibited from requiring or
requesting an employee or applicant for employment to disclose
their personal social media.
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer education
and advocacy organization, writes in support of the measure
that, "job applicants and employees should be entitled to the
same privacy rights for their social media in the public sector
as their counterparts in the private sector."
The American Civil Liberties Association writes in support that:
Privacy protections need to keep pace with changes to
technology. And, public employees and applicants
should not have to give up their right to privacy to
keep or get jobs. Without this legislation, an
employer could misuse private information (including
sensitive medical information) intended for friends,
lovers or spouses that he or she would not normally
have access to by asking an employee or applicant for
employment for username and passwords to his or her
email, Facebook or other personal accounts.
In addition, while current law protects against
employment discrimination based on a number of grounds
including age, sexual orientation, disability or
genetic information or for lawful conduct during
nonworking hours away from the employer's premises, an
employer who has access to employees' or applicants'
social media might learn about and improperly use
information that was meant to be private or shared
only with a select group of people.
The California Teachers Association supports AB 25, emphasizing
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its opposition to any public employee exemption, writing:
Constitutional rights to privacy are violated when an
employer demands that a prospective employee provide
passwords meant to protect date stored on a computer.
The practice of asking interviewees to provide their
passwords sets up an incredibly imbalanced sense of
trust between employers and staff. In general, the
interview process includes a background check, a
request for references, and an interview questionnaire
about one's background, record, and experiences. To
ask for a Facebook password implies that the company
does not trust you, and ignores the very real and very
damaging long-term costs to organizational culture,
employee retention, and managerial trust.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The California Police Chiefs
Association (CPCA) wrote the Committee in strong opposition.
Amongst other things, CPCA states that AB 25 will undermine law
enforcement's ability to screen and monitor the activities of
its personnel, writing in part that:
Persons in law enforcement have positions of
incalculable trust and power in our communities:
Front-line officers literally have the authority to
deprive a person of his/her freedom, use force when
appropriate and even take a life under certain
circumstances. Non-sworn personnel have access to
information and records of citizens that has the
potential of being diverted to inappropriate use.
It is for these reasons that law enforcement agencies
conduct the most thoroughly of scrutinizes prior to
hiring a person into their agency. That scrutiny and
oversight continues even after the individual is hired
and vested with the range of authority and access to
information that is not available to the general
public.
One of the most important scrutiny tools law
enforcement uses is to require the applicant/employee
to provide his/her social media passwords, or-in the
presence of a supervisor-directly access those social
media accounts. Persons who express animus towards
elements of society on their social network sites, for
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example, are simply not suited to be trusted with the
scope of authority of a law enforcement employee.
This information is frequently only available on a
social network location.
We believe that California law enforcement operates at
a very high level of professionalism. That
professionalism has been achieved in no small part due
to the serious pre-screening and on the job scrutiny
of the activities and conduct of law enforcement
employees. Unfortunately, Assembly Bill 25 will
vitiate a key element of our ability to screen and
oversee those persons who are vested with so much
power and trust.
Prior/Pending Related Legislation : AB 1844 (Campos), Chap. 618,
Stats. 2012, prohibits an employer from requiring or requesting
an employee or prospective employee to disclose the username or
password for the purposes of accessing their personal social
media account.
SB 1349 (Yee), Chap. 619, Stats. 2012, prohibits public and
private postsecondary educational institutions from requiring or
requesting students, prospective students, or student groups to
disclose, access, or divulge personal social media.
REGISTERED SUPPORT/OPPOSITION :
Support
ACLU
AFSCME, Local 685
Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs
California Professional Firefighters
California Labor Federation
California Teachers Association
Consumer Federation of California
Glendale City Employees Association
Los Angeles Police Protective League
Los Angeles Probation Officers Union
Organization of SMUD Employees
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Professional Engineers in California Government
Riverside Sheriffs Association
Southwest California Legislative Council
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San Bernardino Public Employees Association
San Luis Obispo County Employees Association
Santa Rosa City Employees Association
Opposition
California Police Chiefs Association
California Probation, Parole, and Correctional Association
Chief Probation Officers of California
California Association of Highway Patrolmen (CAHP)
Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training
California State Sheriffs' Association
Analysis Prepared by : Drew Liebert and Rebecca Kramer / JUD. /
(916) 319-2334