Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Is it illegal to ask people their race/ethnicity as part of their profile on a website?

• posted by: tim peterson on 2015-11-13
• tagged: legal, hiring
• score: 3

When I fill out a profile on many websites, I don’t see many of them ask you your ethnicity. Is there a law against this?

I know you can’t discriminate against someone in hiring but not every website does hiring though I’m sure the companies that own the website want to know this demographics data for their business logic.

Thoughts?

Answer 7845

• posted by: mustaccio on 2015-11-13
• score: 2

Generally asking for this information should be OK if you

• clearly state how you are planning to use this information (and you’re not planning to discriminate against people based ont it),
• otherwise comply with private information protection laws in your jurisdiction,
• and allow people to opt out of providing this information (i.e. accept an empty value).

---

All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.