Social Networking: An Advantage for your Business or a Liability?

In the past five years, social networking sites have become a phenomena of the workplace, whether for personal or professional use. The use of social networking sites such as Facebook, My Space, LinkedIn, and Twitter enables individuals to increase their online visibility by setting up personal web pages and creating online communities of friends and professional contacts.

Such sites can, if used correctly, generate interest in an employer's brand (and possibly employee's) and help a business maintain contact with clients and business associates; with individuals in some instances reconnecting with past friends and/or acquaintances. However, these sites can lead to a blurring of the boundaries between the professional and personal, resulting in a massive impact on the workplace with implications for employers and employees which need to be managed.

Recruitment Profile pages on networking sites contain a wide range of personal information which can be accessible to all depending on an individual's privacy settings. As well as standard background information on profile pages, photographs and voluntary information such as political preferences, religion and belief, relationship status, sexuality and interests can be posted. Individuals can post information and access information about others.

Employers are increasingly searching social networking sites as part of their recruitment vetting process to the extent that a law has been passed in Germany to outlaw the practice on the basis that it represents an invasion of privacy. Research by recruitment firms and Microsoft in December 2009, has shown that individuals have failed in job applications due to information set out in their social networking profile pages. Employers need to take care that recruitment decisions based on the content of networking sites do not render them liable for unlawful discrimination; with both the DIFC Employment Law 2005 and the QFC Employment Law prohibiting a refusal to employ an individual on the grounds of his or her sex, race, nationality, disability, marital status and religion.

Employers in the DIFC and QFC are also subject to data protection laws which impose a higher regulatory burden where the data processed is sensitive personal data; exactly the sort of details personal web pages often include. Individuals have the right to know that their personal information is being processed, which it almost certainly would be if an employer scans social networking...