Social media monitoring has been used by brands for years now, with a more recent use revolving around employment background checks, new hires, and even insurance companies. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will soon be using social media content for granting security clearance for prospective employees.

While privacy concerns and the general use of collecting social media content has been controversial, it looks like this new guideline will be adopted soon according to recent news articles. Similar to HR departments and college recruiters, the department will be able to collect public social media content posted by potential and current employees as part of the process to grant security clearance. It also indicates that they may also collect data around a potential employee’s connections, including friends and family members on their social sites, to attempt to pinpoint any potential information that could be important to granting (or not granting) such clearance.

The department again reiterates that they are NOT asking potential employees to provide passwords or even screen names for their social sites; the proposed monitoring would only affect public facing social content – they would not have access to direct or private messages, for example, or any content that is behind a user’s privacy settings.

While some may oppose this new measure, many believe it is a tool to use to keep our country safe. Public social media data has been used for much more than social engagement over the last seven years; anything that can be used for the safety of the general public is a good thing, and I believe this is a great move by the federal government.

What do you think? Feel free to comment below and join in the discussion!