Is it an invasion of privacy for a company to search the Web for information by and about a job applicant? Interviewers are trained not to ask an applicant for some kind of information (age, marital status, disabilities) to avoid charges of discrimination. Should there be legal restrictions on what kind of information about a candidate a company can look for on the Web?

Question

Steve · Answer

I'd say no.

Just because you can't ask the candidate doesn't mean that publicly available information should not be obtained.

Now, whether it should be legal to weight consideration by using information that cannot be legally asked, is another question. It would be hard to prove that such information was acquired, and then used to weight the decision.

Whether such information can be actively sought may be a good restriction, but if it came up during other queries, should it be considered? If a candidate volunteers (or lets slip) information that cannot be asked, it it legal to consider such information when deciding?

Tricky areas here.