Can employers ask employees to remove themselves from facebook in Canada?

[Someone]

Can an employer legally make the demand that an employee remove themselves from facebook, or be restricted in any way on social media sites? If so, would it fall under the Human Rights Act or the Employment act?

[Daniel]

I am American, but I believe that Canada also has under its constitution that you can't sensor free speech so your employer does not have the right to censor your speech and blackmail you to do so because that is a federal offense in America. I am assuming the Canada has very similar laws.

[agreeablebath669]

No, they cannot, and any discipline would be covered under the applicable provincial labour laws.

HOWEVER, an employer CAN require that an employee not bring disrepute to the company. For instance, if your Facebook details your habit of smoking pot, or excessive drinking, ESPECIALLY if you list your employer, they can use that as an argument to terminate you.

[northernhick]

(A) An employer has a very limited ability to tell you what you can do outside of the employment relationship. Only if you're disclosing some sort of confidential information on facebook or compromising your employment relationship in some other way would the employer have a bona fide interest in whether or not you're on facebook outside of work.

I would disagree that smoking pot or excessive drinking would generally fall into this. For some employees, maintaining a professional image generally is an essential part of the job. For these, yes, drunken facebook photos would probably be disciplinable. However, Tim Hortons would not be able to hold its front-line employees to the same standard. On the other hand, out-of-work conduct of such a morally depraved nature as to compromise the credibility of the employer can be disciplinable generally. (I just don't believe that smoking pot would fall into this category, and disciplining because of a revelation of habitual heavy drinking would risk running awry of the Human Rights Code, alcoholism being a disability.)

(B) An employer can *ask* you not to be on Facebook, or can recommend that you not be on Facebook. They can't require it, but they might well have good reasons why employees ought to be concerned about their own privacy, and you'd be well advised to hear them out.

© An employer CAN prohibit access to Facebook and other social networking sites on work computers and/or on work time.

(D) Generally, unless there's some specific reason why they take exception to your Facebook page (i.e. identification of your religion, or some other such thing), the Human Rights and Employment Standards legislation wouldn't have anything to say.