[LINK] LinkedIn and employment relationship

[Jan Whitaker]

Interesting article about how employers may lay claim to your 
LinkedIn info. What do Linkers think?


LinkedIn blurring demarcation lines

Ben Schneiders
March 1, 2012 - 3:00AM

WHO really owns your social media profile and contacts?

When it comes to LinkedIn, a site popular with executives and 
white-collar workers, it is likely your employer can claim ownership 
of some of your contacts and legally tell you to delete them when you 
leave your job.

Your employer could also tell you to remove any reference on LinkedIn 
that you are looking for work elsewhere, according to employment lawyers.

Freehills partner Kate Jenkins said LinkedIn poses particular issues 
for employers as it blurs the lines between work and personal activities.

By publicly indicating on LinkedIn that you are looking for a 
different job, you could be in breach of an employee's ''duty of 
fidelity''. ''I think the fact of doing that would be a breach of 
their employment obligations,'' she said.

In Britain an employee was sacked after he made negative comments 
about his employer on LinkedIn and also said he was free to be 
contacted for ''career opportunities''. A decision is yet to be 
handed down in that case.

Ms Jenkins said LinkedIn contacts were another fraught area, 
particularly in industries where contact lists are commercially 
sensitive, such as professional services or recruiting. ''The other 
thing, which is quite untested, almost everyone is collecting a 
network of contacts, which in the past would have been a confidential 
client list.''

Staff, when they leave, can face restraints when they go to a 
competitor that they should not contact clients. But on LinkedIn, a 
simple update by an employee that they have moved jobs could tell 
hundreds of contacts of their new role.

Ms Jenkins said employers could be able to restrain employees from 
making an update for a certain period of time or negotiate with them 
to delete contacts they acquired while working for them.

University of Adelaide law professor Andrew Stewart said the legal 
issues were yet to be tested. ''Although these suggestions [by 
Freehills] may be soundly based in existing legal principles, they 
are yet to be fully tested in relation to LinkedIn,'' he said.

This story was found at: 
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/linkedin-blurring-demarcation-lines-20120229-1u3i0.html 




Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

_ __________________ _