Germany plans limits on Facebook use in hiring

The New York Times reports that as part of the draft of a law governing workplace privacy, the German government on Wednesday proposed placing restrictions on employers who want to use Facebook profiles when recruiting.
The bill would allow managers to search for publicly accessible information about prospective employees on the Web and to view their pages on job networking sites, like LinkedIn or Xing. But it would draw the line at purely social networking sites like Facebook, said Philipp Spauschus, a spokesman for the Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Wednesday gave its backing to the proposed law. The bill will now go to Parliament for discussion, and could be passed as early as this year, Mr. Spauschus said.