Facebook itself has requiring access to users' private Facebook accounts. The Facebook specifically forbids doing so: "You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account."

One of my PCWorld peers believes in the "if you don't have anything to hide, " approach championed by . That's crap. I'm not doing anything illicit or illegal in my home either, but there's no way in hell I would give an employer a key to my house to prove it. It's none of your business.

What would you hope to gain? Is the goal to dig into the employee's personal life to identify behaviors that might reflect poorly on the company? Is it to monitor personal social media accounts to guard against leaking confidential data? No matter what the "reason", demanding a Facebook password as a hiring requirement is insane.

Invasion of Privacy

Why would you ask an employee for the password to their personal Facebook account? It's not any different than requiring an employee to surrender a key to his home or car, or tapping his personal phone line. You could do unannounced inspections where you just walk in to the employee's house on the weekend to see what's going on, and search around a bit to see if he's hiding anything.