What is considered ‘institutional racism’?
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is defined as racism that is embedded within the laws of society. It can lead to discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power and education.
The UK 2019 report for unemployment showed that Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani people had the highest unemployment rate of all ethnic groups (Gov.Uk, 2021). For this, certain factors can be taken into consideration, specifically, the introduction of the current trend of screening employees during recruitment.
In the UK, 70% of employers are using social media screening as their hiring process (Driver, 2020). Social media screening has several advantages for the business as it shortens the hiring time as large amounts of information is available at a low cost, allows employers to hire staff locally and globally (Smith and Rupp, 2014). However, social media screening can lead to several disadvantages for the candidate due to unconscious bias.
What is unconscious bias?
Unconscious bias occurs when people favour others who share the same interests as them or look like them (ACAS, 2020). The Equality Act 2010 prohibits an employer to discriminate against an employee based on their age, sex, disability, race or sexual orientation during any part of the recruitment. Unconscious bias during recruitment has always been a cause of concern (Davison et al., 2012), however, is it further triggered by the use of social media screening?
The UK report for institutional racism did not consider the theme of ‘unconscious bias’. In the UK, social media screening is permitted under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which permits the processing of data under Article 9(2)(e) GDPR when the data is made public and under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR where employers can rely on the lawful basis of legitimate interests which can include verifying and vetting to avoid negligent hiring (ICO, 2018). The ICO and the GDPR state that screening should only take place when there is a legitimate interest in place and if there are no other means through which these interests can be fulfilled. Therefore, the question arises, are these legitimate interests, in fact, fulfilled through social media?
Racism through social media screening: A string of possibilities
Firstly, Article 9(2)(e) GDPR states that the processing of personal data is allowed if the data is made public. Article 5(1)(b) and Article 5(1)(c) GDPR, however, state the principles of purpose limitation and data minimization that requires candidate screening co-relate to the job performance and personal information, religion, beliefs, and other factors should not fall into this category. However, when data about a potential job applicant is collected through various social media accounts, especially personal social media accounts, the chances of gaining sensitive information is high as also stated by the Article 29 Working Party, increasing the possibility of unconscious bias and discrimination.
Secondly, the GDPR and the ICO have not taken into consideration the difference between a professional and a personal social media account. For example, candidates or people, in general, do not tend to post about their professional lives on personal SNS’s such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Whereas, professional SNS such as LinkedIn focuses only on professional employment histories and connecting with similar employers and networks providing more chances for an employer to verify and vet information about the candidate’s history. However, in the UK, the three main social media platforms screened by employers were found to be LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (Driver, 2020).
Even if employer’s do focus on professional social media accounts such as LinkedIn, the GDPR Article 5(1)(a) requires employers to inform the data subjects that screening of their social media accounts will be carried out. Therefore, Goffman’s concept of ‘performing the self’ can be mirrored by individuals during online screening where individuals create an ideal version of themselves online (Goffman, 1959). Hence, candidates will strategically present positive, idealized versions of themselves online, similar to face-to-face interactions (Harris and Bardy, 2019). This suggests that social media screening does not reach the aim of avoiding negligent hiring as candidates do not necessarily show their true self on social media.
Thirdly, a 2018 CareerBuilder survey found that 24% of the employers screened social media to search for reasons not to hire the candidate (Driver, 2020). This states that employers have partially made their decisions before they screen a candidate’s social media account. Hence, there is no need for employer to fulfil their ‘legitimate interests’. Moreover, Article 4 GDPR does not allow profiling through an algorithm and requires human intervention. This can further lead to discrimination as human intervention means the recruiter will have a subjective view of the candidate’s profile. Bohnert and Ross (2010) found that applicants with alcohol-oriented profiles were more likely to be rated as less qualified, less likely to be recommended to be interviewed, and less likely to be offered a job.
Therefore, unconscious bias can arise based on what the recruiter considers as a ‘suitable lifestyle’. The fact that the UK claims to be no longer institutionally racist but contains laws allowing employers to have a peek at candidate’s social media and has social media as a base for considering a candidate ‘fit’ for a job is something that was not taken into consideration. Most importantly, unconscious bias was not taken into consideration.
Maybe UK businesses and the government have worked hard to change the racism statistics on paper, but not the racism within the minds of the people. And who is working hard to change that?
References:
Smith, A. and Rupp, W. ‘Managerial Challenges of E-Recruiting: extending the life-cycle of new economy employees’ [20014] 28(1) Online Information Review 61,74 <https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Managerial-challenges-of-e-recruiting%3A-extending-of-Smith-Rupp/102ab81abf5ff3ee469ff90f24f9e1be1700720c> accessed 20 May 2021
ACAS ‘Unconscious Bias’ (2020) [online] <https://archive.acas.org.uk/unconsciousbias> accessed 20th May 2021
Article 29 Working Party Opinion 2/2017 on data processing at work (WP 249, 2017)
Bohnert, D and Ross, H, W. ‘The Influence of Social Networking Websites on the Evaluation of Job Candidates’ [2010] 13(3) Cyberpsychology, Behaviour, and Social Networking 341-347 < https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2009.0193> accessed 24 May 2021
Harris, E. and Bardy, C. A. ‘Do Instagram Profiles Accurately Portray Personality? An Investigation Into Idealized Online Self-Presentation’ [2019] 10 < https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6491845/> accessed 19 May 2021
Goffman, E. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Doubleday and Anchor Books, 1959)
Gov.uk ‘Unemployment’ < https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/unemployment-and-economic-inactivity/unemployment/latest> accessed 29 May, 2021
Davison, K. H., Maraist, C., Hamilton, H, R. and Bing, M. ‘To screen or not to screen/ Using the internet for selection decisions’ (2012) 24(1) Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 1,21 < https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10672-011-9178-y > accessed 2 May 2021
Information Commissioners Office (ICO) ‘What are the conditions for processing?’ (2018) [online] < https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/special-category-data/what-are-the-conditions-for-processing/#:~:text=Article%209(2)(a,usual%20GDPR%20standard%20for%20consent.> accessed 16 May 2021
McDonald, P. and Thompson, P. ‘Social Media(tion) and the Reshaping of Public/Private Boundaries in Employment Relations’ (2016) 18(1) International Journal of Management Reviews69 < https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijmr.12061> accessed 7 May 2021
Driver, S. ‘Keep it Clean: social media screenings gain in popularity’ (Business News Daily, 2020) < https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2377-social-media-hiring.html> accessed 19 May 2021
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