An Illinois employer faces potential liability for accessing an employee’s Facebook and Twitter accounts while the employee was on leave. There is no question the accounts related to the company’s business, and among other things directed traffic to the company website.There were various points of disagreement among the parties about the accounts, however, including:
- The employer says it directed the employee to start the Twitter account in question. The employee denies that.
- The employee says company management had administrator status on the Facebook page in question, so did not need to log in as the employee. The company says it was unaware of that.
- The employee maintained a spreadsheet of activity on the accounts and said it was locked to prevent access by anybody else. But a company intern says the employee gave her access to the spreadsheet.