Protecting Privacy for Students and Employees

Acting to protect privacy rights, the ACLU of Connecticut is supporting a bill to require parental consent before student test results are released to military recruiters and another to prevent employers from asking employees or job applicants for passwords to personal online accounts.

Senate Bill 423 would prohibit schools that administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) from automatically giving military recruiters the test results and personal information that students who take the career exploration test are required to provide. Instead, parents and students over the age of 18 would decide for themselves whether to provide the information to military recruiters.

"This is not about ending the ASVAB. It's about protecting student privacy," Isa Mujahid, field organizer for the ACLU of Connecticut, said in testimony Wednesday before the state legislature's Education Committee. Mujahid, a U.S. Army veteran, explained that the automatic release of test results is set up to circumvent even specific requests from parents that their child's personal information be withheld from military recruiters.

"No parental consent is required for a student to sit for the ASVAB, so the release of information occurs not only without the specific permission of parents or students, but most often without their knowledge," he said. "This is unacceptable. When it happens in contravention of the family’s stated wishes, it is utterly unreasonable."

Maryland, Hawaii, the New York City Department of Education, the Los Angeles Department of Education, and the San Diego City Schools have all taken the same measures provided for in the bill to protect student privacy.

Senate Bill 317 would prohibit employers from asking employees or potential employees to expose their personal online accounts, such as email and Facebook accounts, as a condition of employment. Employers could not request passwords or user names, nor could they require employees or job applicants to log into those accounts in their presence.

David McGuire, staff attorney for the ACLU of Connecticut, said in testimony before the legislature's Labor Committee on Tuesday that the practice threatens not just the privacy of the employee or potential employee but of the friends and associates they contact through email and social media. Employers have no more right to read that electronic communication than they have to rifle through someone's personal postal mail, he said.

McGuire described how an applicant for a municipal job called the ACLU of Connecticut after he was told he wouldn't be hired unless he revealed his Facebook password to the municipality.

"He had already passed through most of the screening process and he needed the job, so he complied, even though he felt his privacy had been violated," McGuire said. "This should not happen, and this legislation will prohibit it."

Last year a similar bill passed the state Senate by a vote of 30-6 but failed to reach the House floor. Ten other states enacted social privacy laws in 2013 and at least 26 states are considering such measures in 2014.