Passage of “Facebook” bill is a victory for civil liberties

We've all read about people seeking jobs and getting asked for their Facebook login information, or even told to log into their accounts right there so the interviewer can "shoulder surf".

Can employers do this as a condition for employment?

We've also heard about employers requiring their existing employees to disclose this information.

Are these requirements legal?

There's nothing in current law that prohibits employers from doing any of this. But that'll change as soon as Gov. Inslee signs Senate Bill 5211, which passed the House today on a unanimous vote.

A striking amendment -- introduced by Rep. Chris Reykdal and strongly supported by everyone on both sides of the aisle, the business community and the ACLU -- provides a clear solution to the problem of employers who demand that job applicants or current employees do one or all of these things:

• provide the passwords to their private social media accounts such as Facebook
• log into their accounts in the presence of the employer
• add an individual affiliated with the employer to their "friends" lists associated with social media sites

Photo credit: freedigitalphotos.com

The legislation explicitly bars:

•  employers from requesting or requiring disclosure of an employee or applicant's personal social networking login or password under any circumstance
• coercive "friending" and forced logins in the employer's presence
• employers from retaliation against employees for refusing to comply with their requests

The bill does allow investigations by employers in regards to leaks of proprietary information or to comply with law, but even then, the employer cannot request or require the personal login information or engage in coercive friending or forced logins.

If the employer is carrying out an investigation, he may request the leaked content, but there is no requirement that the employee turn it over.

In fact, this bill does not give the employer more power to force disclosure of that information than exists under current law.

With the passage of this bill, Washington joins 8 other states that have enacted some form of legislation addressing the issue.

Read this story in Spanish.

House approves Reproductive Parity Act

​“We moved this legislation forward to continue Washington state’s proud history of staying out of people’s personal lives.” –Rep. Dean Takko on the passage of the Reproductive Parity Act

War on women? Not here in Washington.

While state legislatures across the country are turning back the clock on women’s health, House Democrats are moving Washington state forward as a leader in reproductive freedom.

Today, nearly every single insurance plan in Washington covers both maternity services and abortion services. However, the Affordable Care Act could inadvertently limit these reproductive choices by requiring additional administrative red-tape for abortion services.

This change would interfere with a woman’s ability to make the best decisions for her family and her health.

Enter the Reproductive Parity Act—which would require insurance companies to continue their current policy of covering a full range of reproductive choices. Introduced by House Health Care and Wellness Chair Eileen Cody, the bill ensures fairness and protects freedom in a woman’s health care decisions.

This morning a diverse group of lawmakers from across the state spoke in favor of the measure on the House floor.

Rep. Steve Tharinger spoke of growing up in a home with five sisters.

"These are independent, intelligent women," said Rep. Tharinger. "They do not want some bureaucrat in an insurance company, some politician, or even their brother telling them what to do with their health care."

Washington has long led the nation on this important issue. Two years before the U.S. Supreme Court made their landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, Washingtonians approved Referendum 20. R-20 legalized abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.

Then again in 1991, when it looked like Roe could be overturned, voters approved Initiative 120. I-120 protected a women’s right to make a private choice with her doctor in this state- no matter what occurred at the federal level.

When given the opportunity to weigh-in, the voters of this state have always came down on the side of reproductive choice and privacy. By advancing the Reproductive Parity Act, House Democrats are working to ensure that the law in our state reflects this fact.

Read this story in Spanish.

Insurance bundling and black boxes - House committee will take a closer look

In a couple of hours, a meeting will convene that privacy advocates and people concerned about "creative" money-management schemes might be interested in - the House Financial Institutions & Insurance Committee at 1:30.

Have you ever heard of a device called an event data recorder (or EDR)? These things can be installed in a motor vehicle, either by the manufacturer when it’s built or by someone else sometime down the road. EDRs can gather a variety of details about what you and your vehicle are doing, including how fast you’re going and where you’re headed.

The devices can also determine what kind of a driver you are (your acceleration and braking habits, for instance, as well as the way you do your steering). You better believe this is a big consumer-privacy issue. Specifically, we’ve got to be asking ourselves, “What the heck’s gonna be done with the information gathered by these black-box type EDRs?”

That's what the committee will discuss, specifically looking into the way auto-insurance companies can use these EDRs.

Chaired by state Rep. Steve Kirby, the House panel wants to know the answer to a few questions including:

• Can the proprietary information gathered by one of these devices ever be used against the consumer?

• What happens if the insurance company determines that the “locations” you and your vehicle are visiting are “risky”?

Sure, we all know that some neighborhoods might be more dangerous than others. But when private insurers can make these types of determinations, we might well expect some very questionable and arbitrary outcomes. Specifically, a company could use the info to announce: “Your premiums will be increasing because we have determined that the places you frequent or live near are a high risk for claims.” How sneaky and unfair is that?

The House Financial Institutions & Insurance Committee will also review the securitizing of asset streams, AKA “bundling” – a growing practice on the part of the big-money folks in the financial world.

In this bundling operation, mortgages and other loans are packaged up and sold to investors. The borrower frequently isn’t even aware of the sale of his or her loan. Insurance-related products, including the right to collect the benefits of a life-insurance policy, are also being sold off in this same manner. Since the states and the federal government have definite regulatory roles in overseeing these securitized products, the Kirby committee wants to keep an eye on this securitization of asset streams.

Now, consider the practice of bundling subprime mortgages that’s been dragged into the spotlight as a result of the current chaos in the financial world. You bet there’s very serious concern that bundling is still happening today on Wall Street.

Even when it doesn’t involve subprime mortgages, the bundling of life settlements and life-insurance policies is also a very grave issue. What the bundler does is get his or her hands on, say, a thousand $1-million life-insurance policies, bundle them all up, and sell the whole package off to someone else. And then voila, he or she can make a “bundle,” so to speak – without the general public (that’s us) ever getting so much as a whiff of what’s going on. As we’re seeing all too clearly these days, it’s not always a happy ending for consumers when the fiscal foxes find a way to game the financial henhouse.