Bozeman backtracks on privacy matters

In case you haven't yet heard, the City of Bozeman has rescinded the part of its background check form that asked for applicants' passwords for social networking and other Web sites.

"The extent of our request for a candidate's password, user name, or other Internet information appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community," City Manager Chris Kukulski said in a statement released Friday afternoon.

As of noon on June 19, the city has stopped asking job candidates for their usernames and passwords, and until further notice, the city has suspended its practice of peeking at applicants' password protected Web information "until the City conducts a more comprehensive evaluation of the practice." In essence, they won't snoop using the passwords they have already collected until they talk about it some more.

The city commission will discuss the matter at its meeting Monday night at 6 in the commission room at city hall, 121 N. Rouse Ave. The agenda is scant on details as to just what the commission will discuss, but at least they're talking about it now.

Related posts:

1. Last word on Bozeman privacy fiasco
2. Aggregated media coverage of Bozeman privacy fiasco
3. A letter to the Bozeman city attorney
4. Late afternoon Bozeman fiasco update
5. E-mails to City of Bozeman about privacy fiasco not yet available to the public