Privacy Concerns Over Employer Access to Employee Social Media

Amid increasing concerns about the encroachment of work on private life, this article examines the extent to which Australian employers should be able to access their employees’ personal social media posts, with specific reference to ongoing surveillance and the forced disclosure of passwords. Both the federal workplace and privacy legislation are discussed to consider the extent to which they offer appropriate protections. Given their limitations, other options, including a tort of privacy and a workplace privacy regulator, are raised that may better protect the privacy and freedom of expression of employees. Black’s notion of ‘decentred regulation’ is applied to the current, and proposed, law in order to better understand the positives, and negatives, of the legal controls over employer access to the social media of their employees.