The NYPD is now requiring its recruits to log onto their MySpace and Facebook pages so that investigators can check their private postings for inappropriate material.

Previously, the department had just used Google searches to run background checks, but reports of cops using social networking sites to display videos of police brutality and other abuses of power encouraged them to expand their screening efforts.

The debate over how much access employers should have to employees' Web activity stretches way beyond our boys in blue. By now everybody knows that the wrong kind of photos left public on a MySpace account could prevent you from getting hired. And pretending you're sick, then posting about being hungover on Facebook can get you fired. But should it really be your boss's business what you post on your private pages after you get the job?

After the jump we talk malicious urination, TPS reports and whether cops are the exception in this Web 2.0 dilemma.


No way
Your off-the-clock activities are your own business, and that includes social networking done off the clock. Sure, if a fellow employee notices that you have joined a Facebook group called "I piss in the office coffee machine," that is going to become a legitimate workplace issue that would likely lead to dismissal. But as long as you know how to keep your Web activity private, it is none of your boss's concern, and you shouldn't be presumed guilty.

Unfortunately yes
There is no such thing as web privacy when whatever appears in cyberspace is just a screen shot away from the inbox of millions. In the case of the NYPD, the cop that had a MySpace account with pictures of women posing topless in front of his squad car was surely disciplined. Nevertheless, he still did damage to the department's reputation. It's a brave new world, and one in which the concept of privacy is being redefined.

It depends on the job
If you have a job that comes with social responsibility, like a cop or a teacher or a priest, maybe it's appropriate for employers to keep tabs on what you do on the net. But if you are Worker 2472, filling out TPS reports on the the 14th floor, who cares if there is a stack of empties and a pool of vomit in every photo that you have ever been tagged in?