Out To Get You - Recruitment on the Internet

In the Sunday Times some weeks ago, Mark Anstead raised some frightening scenarios surrounding recruitment on the Internet.

A new product called Netsearch identifys passive job seekers as they enter an Internet site. We may think that we are anonymous as we surf the net, yet with the latest technology, that is not the case. Netsearch will gather e-mail addresses from chat rooms, pull CV's from databases on outside sites and lure your computer into exposing your e-mail address. Depending on your personal settings on your browser, you may remain totally unaware that this has taken place and that your personal information is now compromised. Not only are you revealed, the specific areas of your interest will be known because the software will track which web pages you have called up. In addition, software will scour technical chat rooms and the usenet, identifying people with special expertise, collect their e-mail addresses and circulate it to those interested in contacting you - even if you do not wish to be contacted.

While these activities are legally restricted due to the new Data Protection Act which came into force on 1 March 2000, the Internet remains a place notoriously difficult to police.

The Rabbi's Response.

Two basic ethical issues are raised in this article. First, is privacy and second are the issues of poaching and recruitment.

In Jewish law anything that one expects to remain private must remain so unless it is to protect life. Certainly there are specific prohibitions on obtaining information by deceit or undeclared means. The illegality of looking into personal correspondence, for example, is explicit. Over one thousand years ago, Jewish courts already applied severe punishments to those that opened private correspondence or took advantage of private knowledge surreptitiously gained. Most of the information gathering listed above would fall into these prohibited categories.

Concerning poaching and recruitment, many of the current practices would contravene Jewish law. In our tradition we not only take into account the benefit to the employee, we must also consider the damage that we do to the employer by poaching that employee. It would be quite wrong to offer inducements to an employee to leave their work place when no such suggestions have come from the employee. While, if they expressed an interest in leaving you would of course be entitled to offer a position; to actively poach them is prohibited.

What is ambiguous in the case above, is that by entering such a site one has effectively shown some interest in being recruited, which would allow the recruitment agency to then follow up this interest. However, if knowledge of this interest is only gained by an illegal intrusion into the surfer's privacy, it could be argued that visiting the web site means nothing and following him up to the detriment of his current employer would be prohibited.