When we last left the Lower Merion School District, its officials had circled the wagons and refused to openly discuss the lawsuit charging school administrators with remotely accessing the webcams in the laptops loaned out to students, and doing so without the students’ or their parents’ knowledge. The school stayed pretty quiet about it over the weekend, but spokesman Doug Young says that the district has suspended the practice amid the lawsuit and the accompanying protests by students, the community and privacy advocates [The New York Times].
That might not be enough to quell the swell of anger over Lower Merion’s policy. The district, which loans out Apple laptops to all it students, admits remotely activating the webcams 42 times over the course of the last 14 months, but says all of those instances were attempts to find missing or stolen computers. However, this whole fracas started after school administrators tried to use a photo taken of student Blake Robbins as evidence to corroborate charges that the young man had engaged in some sort of mischief. Robbins told CBS News that the school accused him of selling drugs and tried to back up the charge with images from the webcam.
Robbins’ parents filed suit in U.S. District Court, but that won’t be the end of Lower Merion’s legal troubles. The FBI has launched a query into the incident. Risa Vetri Ferman, the Montgomery County district attorney, said Friday that she might also investigate [ABC News].
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Image: Wikimedia Commons / Andrew Plumb
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:58 am
This probably was an anti-theft measure. If one gets stolen the school could get both a mugshot and the IP address of the perpetrator. The IP address itself might not be enough, if for example the thief was using an internet cafe.
An intelligent thief would anticipate the laptop could give him away and wipe the hard drive. But most thiefs are dumb.
But stupidity is also the reason why this was sure to backfire. All it took was one rogue administrator. You can bet this isn’t the only student she spied on, and if she saved the pictures, one or more of them could be child pornography.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:36 am
The school would be extremely hard-pressed/lucky to get out of this unscathed. They say that they were looking for a missing laptop when they turned on the student’s cam, but we don’t know what constitutes ‘missing’ to them. Obviously the student was attending school regularly, so how did they come to the conculsion that his laptop needed to be searched for?
How does turning on the cam help in finding a lost or stolen computer? Wouldn’t some type of GPS be more effective, similar to what comes with many cell phones?
I’m having a hard time coming up with a good reason to remotely activate student’s laptop cams, even if they do happen to be missing.
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:47 pm
It may have been over a decade since I was in a public school, but I still remember how they took it upon themselves to try to enforce as conservative and puritan way of life as possible on the students. I’m not at all surprised that a school would do something like this and subsequently try to bring a student up on drug charges, and I strongly suspect that at least one administrator had this in mind. Students in public schools are already denied many of their basic rights (speech, illegal search and seizure) in the name of creating a safe and positive environment. I hope those in power at this school are punished severely for this and we set a precedent that students in public schools are still human beings with rights.
When I was in high school I was brought in to speak with a guidance councilor (from a christian organization with strong christian overtones of course) and the assistant principal, had my person, my backpack, and both of my lockers searched, and was thoroughly interrogated all because one mentally disabled individual who was active with local christian organizations told the office that I had been smoking pot during lunch hour. At that point in my life I hadn’t done any sort of intoxicant. I’m certain that, given the option, many school officials would use any means necessary to catch kids doing such horrible, life shattering things as experimenting with drugs or alcohol.
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:33 pm
This doesn’t really suprise me. For one I don’t think it’s a horrible thing if the school was doing it to retrieve stolen laptops. However, we all know humans are imperfect, and sooner or later someone was going to abuse it. Plus, there’s gotta be better ways, and the school should have known better.
As far as drugs go, schools should crack down on kids doing drugs. Experimenting with drugs and alchohol leads to drug and alchohol abuse. Finding a kid who’s starting to do drugs could be helped before they become an addict. Or, stop them from selling drugs to other kids. And as far as rights go, kids do lose some being in a “public” school. It’s shared by a large group of people, that’s why extremes like swearing, and wearing profane or very little clothing are prohibited. Or should they just be able to say whatever they want? Should we just let kids swear as they wish?
You have rights untile those rights conflict with other peoples rights Also, with probable cuase, schools have the right to search your locker or your backpack. It’s for protection purposes. People who tend to have problems with searches are people who are trying to hide things anyways. Heck, my school brought in dogs regularily to sniff the lockers. Oh noes, they may find out I have some books in there. And what is the big deal anyways? So they search you and interogate you, big deal. I had school officials interrogate me, and when they didn’t find anything they let me go. I’m not traumatized or anything by it, and it’s not the end of the world. Schools need to be moderatly strict. They have to have some form of order, and consequences if that order isn’t followed.
And conservative and puritan? Hello, last time I checked most public schools and universities have way more democrats than republicans in them. How about let’s not point fingers, and just punish the people who made the mistake in the first place?
And people need to toughen up!
In this case though, it does sound like the school overstepped its bounds, and should be dealt with.
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:55 pm
The school district may have captured CHILD PORN and then sent it over
interstate communications. That would be serious karma.
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Hello 1984.
February 24th, 2010 at 1:11 am
Gee, I didn’t know that the school system administrators had to double as police in Lower Merion.
The theft of a laptop costing at least $1000 (I think that’s still the low end for an Apple notebook) is a serious crime. Why the Lower Merion schools didn’t turn to the police with these suspicions is beyond me. The administrators didn’t have the power to arrest anyone and they surely must have wondered at least once whether they were violating laws, especially when they were taking pictures of students and parents off-campus.
Also, if you have to use Webcams 42 times to investigate possible laptop theft, then you have to admit that you have a serious, chronic problem with this type of crime. At what point do you stop snooping on your own, inform your city leaders and go to the police? Well before you used the Webcams 42 times to spy on people, I’d think.
Finally, this school system has seriously screwed up when it comes to earning and keeping the trust of their students. Teens have issues with respecting authority and controls over their behavior. Lower Merion has just given them good cause to distrust the school system for a long time. Good luck trying to repair that relationship.
February 24th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
…and people think I’m paranoid when I cover up my laptop webcam with a piece of tinfoil….
Seriously though, this is disturbing. As Max above says, 42 times?! You can bet those students are mentally replaying what they were doing or wearing when they had those laptops open. Not only has any possibility of trust been destroyed, but so has peace of mind for many of those students.
February 25th, 2010 at 12:13 am
The guy is most likely part of a teachers union and wont get fired.
March 4th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Speaking of spying – gmail reads our private e-mails. So I found out recently. I find that ugly enough to leave that gang.
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