Germany Plans to Limit Facebook Use in Hiring

As part of the draft of a law governing workplace privacy, the German government on August 25 proposed new restrictions on employers' use of Facebook profiles when recruiting. The proposed law would allow managers to search for publicly accessible information about prospective employees on the Web and to view their pages on job-networking sites, like LinkedIn or Xing, but would draw the line at purely social-networking sites like Facebook, said Philipp Spauschus, a spokesman for the Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière. Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet gave its backing to the proposed law Wednesday. The bill will now go to Parliament for discussion, and could be passed as early as this year, Mr. Spauschus said.