Posted on 02/19/2010 8:50:42 AM PST by Palter
In a lawsuit filed in federal court, a school district in suburban Philadelphia has been accused of using a Webcam embedded in a school-issued laptop to covertly photograph a 15-year-old student in his home.
According to the boy’s parents, Michael and Holly Robbins — who filed the class action suit against Lower Merion School District, on behalf of their son, Blake, and all the the other students whose privacy may have been violated in a similar fashion — the family discovered that the laptop could be used for remote spying three months ago. The suit states that on Nov. 11, 2009, Lindy Matsko, an assistant principal at Harriton High School, informed Blake that he “was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the Webcam embedded in [his] personal laptop issued by the School District.” (The complete text of the suit was posted online by The Philadelphia Inquirer.)
The suit adds that Ms. Matsko subsequently confirmed to the boy’s father that the district “in fact has the ability to remotely activate the Webcam… at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the Webcam.”
In a letter to parents posted on the school district’s Web site late on Thursday night, Christopher W. McGinley Lower Merion’s schools superintendent, admitted that a security feature allowed the Webcams to be activated without the knowledge of the laptops’ users, but claimed that it was only used to track lost or stolen computers and had been disabled on Thursday. Mr. McGinley wrote:
District laptops do contain a security feature intended to track lost, stolen and missing laptops.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelede.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I think they were looking for stolen laptops -
Wow. Those people need to be in jail. For a very, very long time.
If they activate the webcam while a student is changing clothes they may be engaged in kiddie porn. A few dozen years in the slammer for that will ‘modify the behavior’ of the snooping school administrators.
If they did spy, they will be toast but this is also a teachable moment. There was that student on The Early Show who said she took her laptop everywhere, including the shower (to listen to music), and was a bit freaked about it. Hey, the thing has a built in camera and you aimed it at yourself? have you ever heard of hackers??? have you looked at hardware and software options to disable it when not in use??? EVERYONE who has a camera attached to their system has to know how to disable it when not in intended use. That is just basic safe computing.
I was thinking myself that a search warrant served on the district computers would probably yield a multi-count indictment for child pornography.
Maybe they should have all pictures and video put in the hands of investigators and see if any would constitute exploitation of a sexual nature.
No really. I read (Newsbusters or?) where there were some stolen laptops - but anything can happen I guess ....
What did they see and when did they see it?......................
This sounds very different than the CYA letter released by the superintendent claiming the 'feature' was only ever used for tracking stolen laptops.
Somebody is going to be the scapegoat in an attempt to deflect the lawsuit.
That is what is called “discovery” phase of a lawsuit..........
ONLY?
Tracking devices do NOT need video capability. There are other ways to keep up with stolen laptops.
Shameful.
According to an unsubstantiated post the kid was eating Mike-n-Mike's and they accused him of popping pills. Again, unsubstantiated.
Parents: Electrical tape over the webcam lense will eliminate further intrusions.
I was thinking the same thing.
I thought about that too but then there's audio.
Actually they should have already been arrested for Attempting to Produce Child Pornography. Unless of course none of these kids ever undressed in their own bedrooms.
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