This is an interesting question and one I ask because in the Melbourne Age this morning, there was an article about how your employer could possibly claim ownership of some of your contacts on the LinkedIn platform. In Britain an employee was sacked after he made negative comments about his employer on the social media site LinkedIn, as well as saying he could be contacted for “career opportunities”. Read more in the article: LinkedIn blurring demarcation lines.
In this age of social media there is uncertainty and it is a valuable question to pose. Although the question is relevant to most social media platforms, it is highly relevant to the social media site LinkedIn which is a professional site where networking and business contacts can be built around the employee’s role and employment. It is legitimate to look at the issue from both the employer and employee’s perspective.
- Can an employer tell an employee to remove certain contacts from their profile?
- If the employee has spent personal time building these contacts who do these contacts belong to?
- Can the employer claim ownership for the profile, the actual account or the contacts?
Although I am not a lawyer, these legal issues are yet to be tested. However, the key issue is not so much about the profile but about the networking contacts? If the employee is using company resources to contact business clients and adding them to their contacts whom do they belong to?
These are hard questions, which will become more and more widespread as the rise and popularity of social media increases. That is where a solid social media policy is so important to any business. When the ground rules are clear, there could be potentially less confusion.
What do others think?