Dive Brief:

• Delaware Governor Jack Markell signed a law to prohibit employers from interfering with the personal social media accounts of their prospective and current employees.  
• The new law, which took effect on August 7, defines “personal social media” to encompass any account on a social networking site created and operated by a prospective or current employee exclusively for his or her personal use, according to an article at The National Law Review contributed by Proskauer, the employment law firm.
• The term does not include accounts created or operated by an employer and that are operated by an employee as part of his or her employment.

Dive Insight:

The new Delaware law continues a growing trend across the country.  Twenty-one other states have similar laws restricting employer access to a prospective or current employee’s personal social media account, Proskauer reports.

Among other things, the new law prohibits an employer from requesting or requiring a prospective or current employee to disclose a username or password for the purpose of allowing the employer to access personal social media; access personal social media in the presence of the employer, or use personal social media as a condition of employment.

Employers can request that an employee divulge a username, password or social media “reasonably believed to be relevant” to an investigation of alleged employee misconduct or violation of applicable laws and regulations (so long as the social media is used solely for purposes of that investigation or a related proceeding), however. There are other reasons for employers to access employee social media accounts, but they are nothing new.

In other words, employers mainly need to keep their hands off employee private data that is not available to the general public.