Originally Posted by Idealogically Promiscuous

There's this principle in labor law called "clean hands". The employer has an obligation to the employee to keep their dealings upfront. Because there is a monetary transaction going on between the employee and the employer, there are restrictions on fraudulent practices from both sides. The employer cannot represent itself as being something other than what it is and entrap the employee into an unprofessional situation because it is expected that the rules of conduct between the employer and employee are different than those of the private lives of both. Likewise, the employee cannot fraudulently present himself as having qualifications or experience that he does not have. The employer pretending to be unaffiliated with the "organization" for the purposes of gathering private information on the employee outside the professional setting is a fraudulent practice. It's why you sign consent forms for background checks, etc, and those forms state explicitly what information is going to be gathered and what its intended use is.

The employee/employer relationship is not an automatic dismissal of the employee's right to privacy.