Online monitoring: checking up on staff and job candidates

Looking up information on social media is starting to become a standard part of the background checks which employers run on prospective job candidates, or even on existing employees. This briefing, the last in a three-part series on social media, looks at whether such checks: can be used as a basis for rejecting a job candidate; infringe an employee’s data protection rights or privacy; or permit an employer to dismiss an employee.