A couple of weeks ago I highlighted some of the issues around the use of social media in enterprise. One of the issues I highlighted specifically was LinkedIn profiles and their ownership.
It had come up more than once, particularly in the context of sales people, as to who owns the information contained in LinkedIn profiles that would have accumulated during the holder’s time with an employer.
It has been argued that moving on to another employer and taking the contacts generated during the time with the previous employer was tantamount to stealing the customer list as you went out the door.
This may be a slightly extreme interpretation, but nonetheless, many an employer has expressed concerns and felt that it had some claim over the information, mainly contacts, in said profiles.
I had heard, anecdotally, that if one had registered one’s LinkedIn profile with an email address from one’s employer, as opposed to a personal email address, then the employer had some claim over the LinkedIn information. By the same token, it was perceived that in the case of a LinkedIn profile that was registered with a personal email address, an employer had no claim whatsoever.
At a recent event hosted by the excellent Irish Software Innovation Network, I met with Colin Rooney of law firm Arthur Cox, who is a specialist in law relating to technology, data protection and freedom of information, outsourcing, cloud computing, intellectual property, and online contracting and e-business.
With such expertise on hand, I could not but ask this burning question. I outlined the above to Rooney who was even more circumspect on the issue. He said that, even in the case of the holder of the LinkedIn profile having registered it with an email address issued from the employer, there was no automatic right for the employer to have access to the information contained therein.
Rooney said that all of the normal rules apply to the information, in terms of how and why it was gathered, with whose consent and so forth. In that context, the information would not have accumulated had the person not been actively engaged in a role, dealing with people and making connections. This is also complicated by the fact that the information resides on LinkedIn servers, not that of the employer. Plus the fact the LinkedIn terms and conditions say that the information is personal to the account holder.
However, that was challenged recently in the UK, where the Whitmar Publications Limited versus Gamage case in the High Court determined that ex-employees could not use contacts from a group created by the employer, but maintained by one of the employees.
Now, the important bit here is ex-employees, and it seems a little bit outside of the usual scope in so far as they were using a contact group that had been created not by a single profile user, but by a group for the employer in question so, again, not a straight forward comparison, but certainly one that is likely to be cited in such cases.
Back to home though, and it would seem that there is no automatic right of an employer to the information contained within a LinkedIn profile, even if much of that information was generated during the account holder’s time with that employer, and also irrespective of the nature of the email address used to register the profile. While the nature of the address used to register the profile might make an employer’s case stronger, it does not confer a right.
We would very much like to hear the thoughts of IT pros on this topic. So, if you think different, or have experienced otherwise, please do let us know.
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