Bill > HB5143

This bill establishes social media privacy protections for individuals associated with West Virginia's institutions of higher education, defining key terms like "employee," "institution of higher education," "social media account," and "student." It prohibits these institutions from demanding usernames and passwords for personal social media accounts from current or prospective students and employees, or from requiring students to add institution personnel as contacts or alter their privacy settings as a condition for participating in academic or extracurricular activities. Furthermore, the bill prevents institutions from penalizing current students or refusing to admit or hire prospective students and employees for exercising these privacy rights. Importantly, it clarifies that these protections do not prevent institutions from viewing information that is already publicly accessible online.