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[forum admin]

Recruiters' encouragement to their employees and workers to use social and professional networking sites for work purposes could pose legal risks.  At a recent Blake Lapthorn and APSCo seminar with Selwyn Bloch QC, recruiters were advised of practical steps that an employer could take to minimise potential risks.

It is difficult to monitor an employee’s online activity, the legal experts agreed.  Unfortunately it is all too easy for an employee to build up contacts and upload information as a preliminary step to setting up in competition. 

Sensitive business information can be shared with competitors and third parties and confidential information that is uploaded into a public domain will lose its element of confidentiality, making it hard for an employer to get legal protection for its databases.
 
Unfortunately the courts have not yet had to decide whether an individual’s networking contacts belong to the employer or the individual.  With the rise in networking activity it is to be hoped that the position will be clarified soon.
 
There is clearly a fine line between professional networking for business purposes and private social networking whilst at work, the legal experts said.  Any measures taken by an employer that encroach too far into an individual’s right to privacy are likely to be unenforceable. However, the legal experts offered some practical tips for all employers:
 
* have a clear IT policy that includes use of networking sites and monitor your employees to ensure compliance (you will need to inform them, and keep the monitoring to reasonable levels)

* ensure employees keep their social and professional networking separate and insist they use a work email address for professional networking

* require employees to delete business contacts from their networking accounts when they leave your employment

* have clearly drafted specific restrictive covenants properly covering candidate data (most current covenants fail properly to protect this data).

[Malcolm]

If employers seriously want their workers to try to build up contacts for business via these social networking avenues they certainly can't complain about an employee using Facebook, Twitter etc. I personally think it should certainly be from a secondary account though. Otherwise the personal and the business side of things will just become a blurred grey line.

[Bob]

We're allowed to use Twitter here but Facebook is blocked. I'm not quite sure why that is but people don't want to point out the inconsistency in case we lose Twitter too.

[Jason]

We're allowed to use Twitter here but Facebook is blocked. I'm not quite sure why that is but people don't want to point out the inconsistency in case we lose Twitter too.

Facebook is the only social network banned here but that is simply due to time spent doing persaonl activities on that particular site.  Before the ban we were losing 2 - 3 hours per day from a team of just 12 people, so it had to be blocked.  No other site has this captivating effect.

However, I think a certain amount of professional/personal blending is desirable, for example it is nice to notice a person you have done business with has other interests.

[Malcolm]

Hey Jason welcome here.