Mass. lawmakers hope to pass social media security bill

Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to pass a bill that will protect your social media privacy from prying eyes. Whose prying eyes?

Your boss, for one, who might demand that you provide your social media password and username.

On Wednesday, the senate is meeting to vote on the Social Media Privacy Protection Act, which will make it explicitly illegal for employers, and even teachers, to ask applicants, employees or students for access to their private social media.

“Social media has become far more proliferate in our lives,” Senator Bruce Tarr told Fox25. “It’s become far more important, but we’ve also seen a number of cases where the access to that information has been breached.”

“What it really is about is passwords and account information, and things that simply go too far in giving access to an employer or a school.”

Under the law, teachers and employers would be able to request access to private social media accounts if “they feared the user was committing a crime or posing a safety threat.”

The law does allow users to sue those they think have tried to access their account illegally.