Bank of America is urging its more than 175,000 employees to fill out an online survey about job satisfaction. Question 64 asks respondents to "indicate which one of the following best describes yourself."
Clicking on the pull-down menu provides four choices:
-- Heterosexual
-- Bisexual
-- Homosexual
-- Transgendered
Human resources professionals say it's highly unusual for a company of BofA's size and stature to seek such information.
Privacy advocates say that even though BofA insists all survey results are confidential, the reality is that online forms can be traced back to individual workstations.
Employees within the bank say they're afraid the information they provide could be used to generalize about the work habits of certain types of people.
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