The issue is not new; in fact there have been public examples of employers asking for login information dating back as much as two years, , which has since reversed its position. The Associated Press several examples of organizations asking for login credentials, mostly in the public law enforcement or financial services industries. With the focus on it, there have been moves to ban such behavior, including .

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Andrew Walls, a , risk and privacy researcher at Gartner, calls the efforts to acquire login information of workers "a pretty egregious violation of personal privacy." Increased attention on the issue "throws gasoline on the fire in the call for more regulation" against the practice, he says.

Walls agrees that he doesn't expect such a practice would happen as much in the technology industry though. "In the tech world, if you're trying to hire someone, you probably already know a lot about the perspective employee based on public information," he says. "If anyone would know how to find it, it would be tech companies."

Using public information about potential employees is not new, and it's becoming easier for employers to get that information. There are various products on the market, including one from Kenexa named Social Source, that scan the Internet, including social media sites, to collect information about individuals. For example, an employer can create a form and the system will automatically populate certain query fields using social media profiles. For example, the software can scan the Internet and find an applicant's LinkedIn profile to pull out resume information, such as prior work experience.