Pennsylvania schools spying on students using laptop Webcams, claims lawsuit

[FBaggins]

A suburban Philadelphia school district remotely activates the cameras in school-provided laptops to spy on students in their homes, a lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday alleged. According to the lawsuit filed by a high school student and his parents, the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa. has spied on students and families by "indiscriminate use of and ability to remotely activate the Webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the School District."

Approximately 1,800 students at the district's two high schools have been given laptops as part of a state- and federally-funded "one-to-one" student-to-laptop initiative.

Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., said they first found out about the alleged spying last November after their son Blake was accused by a Harriton High School official of "improper behavior in his home" and shown a photograph taken by his laptop.

An assistant principal at Harriton later confirmed that the district could remotely activate the Webcam in students' laptops.



http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9158818/Pennsylvania_schools_spying_on_students_using_laptop_Webcams_claims_lawsuit?taxonomyId=146

[Cirque du So-What]

1. People need to go to jail for this

No pussyfooting around this time - go straight to the motherfucking JAIL! And big-ass fines to boot! A message must be delivered that invasion of privacy will not be tolerated. I want computers seized & e-mails gone through with a fine-toothed comb in order to find everyone in the whole school system who signed off on this.

[LiberalFighter]

2. I wonder how many underage nude photos were taken?

[Hannah Bell]

4. you & 400 other Democrats at DU. Obsessively so.

Considering a law suit is an allegation, not a proven fact.

[FBaggins]

6. So we can't discuss it until there is a conviction?

n/t

[Hannah Bell]

7. no problem with discussion. problem with discussing allegations as though they were proven facts.

& with some of the more prurient embroideries.

[Hannah Bell]

3. a third thread was needed? really?

[FBaggins]

5. I hadn't seen it before... has it been posted to Education?

n/t

[Hannah Bell]

8. no. i suppose you're right, an ed thread was needed as well.

so as long as you've posted it here, i'll note that this story broke on a blog called "america's right" on 2/17 & was already on a list of winger sites the night before the court case reporting blog got it out, & before the mainstream news sites.

just a bit of trivia.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hannah%20Bell


"On November 11, 2009, Plaintiffs were for the first time informed of the above-mentioned capability and practice by the School District when Lindy Matsko, an Assistant Principal at Harriton High School, informed minor Plaintiff that the School District was of the belief that minor Plaintiff was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor Plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the School District."


The suit alleges the district told them they had the capacity to activate the webcam at any time.

The suit alleges the district cited as evidence a photo from the webcam.

But the suit doesn't allege the district (or its personnel) took the photo using its remote capacity.

I think that's interesting. The language in the suit is presented so that that would be inferred, but it's never stated directly.

I speculate there are legal reasons for the phrasing, & the suit is going to turn on where that photo came from.

[FBaggins]

9. I don't care who blogged on it first.

Of course the sites that dislike public education are going to give it the most air time, but that doesn't impact the legitimacy of the original story.

The rest of your post tries to divide fact from allegation in a way that says "maybe it wasn't as bad as that"... and that's true enough. It's rampant speculation that the school was spying on kids undressing in their bedrooms (etc).

But one simple fact is damning enough. Macs don't come with that software. Somebody decided it was ok to give kids laptops and set them up in a way that this could happen.

That alone is unacceptable and makes it worthy of notice/action. Employers have done this for employees who work from home, but it needs to be disclosed and it's still a privacy concern. This has no possible justification and couldn't have happened by accident. Even if they never used it (and this would be the mother of all coincidences if that were the case), there's a real problem.


the suit is going to turn on where that photo came from

Yes and no. The ability of the plaintiff to get some financial gain from the suit may very well hinge on that. But the case for firing whoever decided that they could set these laptops up that way (and firing just about anyone who knew about it and doesn't have a good excuse why they remained silent) is quite strong regardless.


The different between what this is "at a minimum" and the "worst case" is not the difference between being worthy of our discussion or not... it's between whether (and how many) people need to be fired... or sent to prison.

[Hannah Bell]

10. The conservative blogger says he just happened to be present when the suit

was filed.

"Somebody decided it was ok to give kids laptops and set them up in a way that this could happen."

I agree, that was stupid. But to me, the question is, did the district take pictures of the kids in their homes for any reason other than when a laptop was stolen?

This suit started when a student was called into the vice-principal's office for some behavior violation that occurred at home. A picture was allegedly presented in evidence of this behavior violation.

This part of the story doesn't make sense to me. The only home behavior violation the school could possibly have a legitimate interest in would be the misuse of its computer. They loan out the computers with a use contract, and one of the misuses would be anything that could leave the district open to the charge they were abetting illegal activities, or that their equipment was being used for illegal or immoral purposes.

Nor does it seem likely to me that the school would use an illegally obtained photo as evidence of the student's misdeed. I don't believe a principal would be ignorant of the illegality of taking random photos of students in their homes, nor so stupid, were they committing such illegal acts, as to say to to a student.

So my question is: did the students also have the capacity to use the webcam to take pictures?
And to transmit them to others or store them on the hard drive? I'd guess they did.

[FBaggins]

11. That's the difference between stupid and criminal, yes.

I agree, that was stupid. But to me, the question is, did the district take pictures of the kids in their homes for any reason other than when a laptop was stolen?


And that's the difference between whether it was a bone-headed (likely firing) offense or a possible criminal complaint.

The problem is that their claim doesn't seem reasonable. The software isn't designed as a "security" package to recover stolen laptops. It's designed for corporations to spy on their employees working at home. It takes a picture of the user and the screen so that the employer can verify that the employee is at their desk... and actually working. The ones I'm aware of require that the computer be connected to the company network at the time... which wouldn't happen with a stolen laptop.

I don't believe them. I could be wrong (I hope I am), but I think that there was someone in the administration who felt that they had the same right to monitor the use of their equipment as a company has to monitor theirs (and we don't even need to get in to whether or not the company has any such right). That if they were going to give students this equipment, they were going to verify that they were being used... and used for school purposes.

Another reason the "used for security only" strikes me as hard to believe:

Yes... I agree that the student's story seems really odd. Why would a school do this? BUT... the alternative is that the student made the story up and this just happed to coincidentally be a school that actually HAD installed such software on the laptops. That's a really high coincidence hurdle for me to get over.

[donco6]

12. I didn't even know it was possible to remotely activate web cams.

That's pretty scary on many fronts.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. I've been calling bullshit on this story since I first heard it

Yes, school districts (as well as other employers) can and do put tracking devices into laptops to discourage theft. I know for a fact that some school districts have recovered stolen laptops because of these devices.

HOWEVER, who has the time to sit and spy on all these kids? With all the cutbacks and layoffs, I just can't see any school district personnel being put in charge of spying on kids. Are there admins who are crazy and authoritarian enough to do this? Sure there are. But are there any who have the time? I doubt it.

I also know from experience that school districts are way behind the rest of the world in implementing technology and training employees to use it. A friend emailed this story to me and commented that the principal at her kids' school asked her (she is a stay at home mom with a tech degree) to come in and help him set up his new computer and he didn't even know how to hook it up to a printer.

So I will be following this story. I am far from a believer.

[donco6]

14. I'm watching it, too.

Interesting to see how this story has whipped the trolls here into a frenzy, tho.