University of Alberta

Alberta Privacy Czar Cautions Employers on using Social Media during Hiring


January 19, 2012

In the December 3, 2011 edition of the Calgary Herald, James Wood reported an item titled Alberta Privacy Czar Cautions Employers on using Social Media during Hiring that organizations think twice before logging into Facebook or Twitter to vet potential employees or volunteers.

While the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s (OIPC) Director of Personal Information, Diane McLeod McKay doesn’t come right out and say don’t do it; she did say that you need to take a careful look at your obligations under the privacy laws and see if you can meet those requirements in social media.

CAPS staff investigated and read the ‘Guidelines for Social Media Background Check December 2011’ from the Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta and we have summarized it for you. Remember, this is a summary, before you use social media to vet potential employees we suggest you visit the website at http://www.oipc.ab.ca/pages/home/default.aspx and read the guidelines.

  1. Prior to using social media to collect personal information, an organization must understand its business purpose for doing so.
  2. Consider the reasonableness of doing a social media check. Think as to whether a check using traditional means will gather the information you need and question if the added information possibly gathered through social media is necessary to your business.
  3. By performing a social media check you may collect personal information that is irrelevant and considered unreasonable. Through social media checks your organization may lose control over the quantity and relevance of information gathered which creates the very real risk of non-compliance with PIPA.
  4. Consider also the inadvertent gathering of third-party personal information, again a violation of PIPA. Remember viewing is a form of collection under PIPA. So if you find our that your candidate is friends with the owner of your competitor or that your candidate is married - both pieces of information are irrelevant, and third-party - both not allowed under PIPA.
  5. There is also the question of accuracy on social media sites.  Matching a name on a site to that on a resume is fraught with issues, mislabelled photos appears and out-of-date information are all potential pitfalls in using social media.
In general the advice from OIPC is to proceed with caution if at all.  Please visit the website or contact the OIPC offices for more information.