Although new legislation protects students from nosy employers demanding passwords to their social media and email accounts, students’ MSU email passwords still can be accessed by university officials.
The Internet Privacy Protection Act prohibits employers and educational institutions, such as MSU, from requiring employees or students to provide their passwords to email or social media accounts.
However, passwords to privately-owned email accounts, such as msu.edu or a company account, are not protected by the new law.
According to the law, employers and universities that dismiss, punish or fail to admit a student who does not provide passwords to applicable accounts will be penalized. House Bill 5523 was signed during Michigan Legislature’s lame duck session in December and took effect immediately.
Bill creator state Rep. Aric Nesbitt, R-Lawton, said in earlier decades, privacy intrusions were physical — someone rummaging through another person’s mail or peeping into their living room window — but now everything’s digital and private lives are online.
“I think that it’s important to ensure that our privacy laws are updated to reflect that change,” Nesbitt said.
Nesbitt said he worked on the bill with MSU’s Assistant Vice President for State Affairs David Bertram, who felt the original wording of the bill was unclear as to whether MSU could require students provide the university with passwords to their MSU email accounts.
“It made it look like we couldn’t have any oversight of regulation over email accounts that we give out to students,” Bertram said.
The bill was changed to include language that confirms the university owns msu.edu email addresses and therefore still can require students to provide their MSU email password.
When a student becomes an MSU employee after landing a job on campus, their MSU email account does not become an employee account, and the university still can require students provide passwords, Bertram said.
MSU Career Services Coordinator Bill Morgan said if employers or academic officials want to know about a student, a Google search and the resulting public information should be enough.
“I can’t appreciate when there would be a time that an employer should be asking for access or a password to get into someone’s social media account,” he said.
“It just seems like overstepping your bounds — almost like asking for someone’s keys to their house.”
Despite the additional protection, Morgan said professors and employers still can see public posts on Facebook or other social media sites.
Although the law does not completely protect all student and employee privacy, journalism sophomore Karilynn Burks said she’s happy the law takes some steps to protect her rights.
“Even if you are my employer, why is what I’m saying to one of my friends outside of work any of your business?” she said.
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