School district accused of spying on students via laptop webcams
A school district in Pennsylvania has had a class action lawsuit filed against it that claims the school issued laptops have been used to spy on students even in their homes.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania, its board of directors and the superintendent of the school district over the laptops issued to all 1800 students of the districts two high schools. The suit, Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PDF link), claims that the school administrators can remotely activate the built-in webcams at any time to see what the students are doing, whether it be in school or at home.
The laptop feature was discovered on Nov. 11th, 2009 when Blake Robbins was summoned to the Vice principal’s office and accused of “improper behavior in his home.” What exactly this behavior was is unknown at this time, but as evidence of the minor’s misdeeds, he was presented with a print out of a photo taken from the laptop that showed the interior of his home. The family later conferred with the school and discovered that the school can indeed activate the webcams whenever they see fit, although no documentation issued with the laptop, nor on any Web site, indicates that the school can do this, so no permission was ever sought or given in regards to this stealth feature.
As the suit is a class action filing, that means that all 1800 students are eligible to be included in whatever settlement is determined should the plaintiffs win their case.
We did attempt to contact the school district for comment, but calls were unreturned by the time of this posting.
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February 18th, 2010
Wow…that is not good.
I hope the school loses the lawsuit teachers should not be prying eyes in students personal life’s…how would they feel if students watched them?
February 18th, 2010
After further investigation on the School District website, it appears this story is a gross distortion and misrepresentation. The webcam security feature was activated only once at the request of the student who owned the laptop, which had been stolen. The webcam image was used to identify the thief and now the parents of the thief are trying to evade the theft charges with a frivolous lawsuit. American legal system hijacked again with the help of sloppy reporting…
February 19th, 2010
As a teacher, I have to say that I’m glad I can just get them safely out the door each day. The last thing I want is to start worrying about what they are up to at home, too.
February 19th, 2010
Mayday82 – At the time this article was posted, the only information available was what was listed in the class action lawsuit.
At no time has the school said this feature was activated at the request of a student/family, they said that would be how this would be handled in the future.
There has been no indication that the student involved in the class action suit was accused of theft.
We did attempt to contact the school district for direct comment, and they have yet to return our calls.
February 19th, 2010
There’s a really simple way to disable the webcam – just its lens up with something opaque….