On August 1, 2012, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a bill modifying Illinois' Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act to limit employers' access to applicants' and employees' restricted social media accounts. The Illinois bill applies to both public sector and private sector employers.  The law makes Illinois the second state in recent months (after Maryland) to forbid employers from requesting or requiring log-in credentials for an applicant's or employee's social networking sites.

Specifically, Illinois' new law makes it unlawful for an employer to:

• "request or require any employee or prospective employee to provide any password or other related account information in order to gain access to the employee's or prospective employee's account or profile on a social networking website[;]" or
• "demand access in any manner to an employee's or prospective employee's account or profile on a social networking website."

To learn more about the law and its potential implications for employers, please continue reading Littler's ASAP, Illinois' New Social Media Password Protection Law Handicaps Employers' Legitimate Business Activities, by Philip Gordon and Kathryn Siegel.