WASHINGTON – Social media and email accounts are in for some changes in Virginia, including new protections for workers applying for jobs or who want to keep their activity secret from their employers.
The General Assembly has agreed to block employers from requiring workers or prospective workers to provide passwords to social media accounts, and the bill also blocks employees from being forced to accept friend or follow requests.
A separate bill permits families access to the email accounts of relatives after they die, as long as the person who died expressed some kind of intent to allow them access in a will or the use agreement with the provider.
The executor would also need to provide documentation to obtain a court order that would grant access to 18 months of data about the emails including the subject lines and the message recipients or senders. That information could then be used to ask for the content of specific emails that are relevant to the estate, while protecting content that the person who died may have wanted to keep private.
The bill is meant to help executors track down all assets of a person who dies because statements and other financial documents or transactions are often sent through email rather than hard copies sent through the mail.
The bills were expected to be sent to the governor for consideration after a final round of floor votes Friday afternoon.
