As I see it, it was quite the opposite. It was equipment issued by the school under a requirement of needing it to complete coursework. And it was issued under false pretenses, because it was used for far more than that...as the FBI is now no doubt uncovering. Add in the fact that these children attend state operated schools under a mandatory attendence law...
The laptops were not gifts.
The legal definition of a gift.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/gift
A voluntary transfer of property or of a property interest from one individual to another, made gratuitously to the recipient. The individual who makes the gift is known as the donor, and the individual to whom the gift is made is called the donee.
If a gratuitous transfer of property is to be effective at some future date, it constitutes a mere promise to make a gift that is unenforceable due to lack of consideration. A present gift of a future interest is, however, valid.
Rules of Gift-Giving
Three elements are essential in determining whether or not a gift has been made: delivery, donative intent, and acceptance by the donee. Even when such elements are present, however, courts will set aside an otherwise valid gift if the circumstances suggest that the donor was, in actuality, defrauded by the donee, coerced to make the gift, or strongly influenced in an unfair manner. In general, however, the law favors enforcing gifts since every individual has the right to dispose of Personal Property as he or she chooses.
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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gift
gift
2 : something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation
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You don’t coerce someone out of money at legal gunpoint (fines and jail time), purchase equipment for them to use, demand that they use it, insure it, be responsible for it, and penalize them if they use it inappropriately, and call it a gift. The laptops are still the school’s property. ownership of the laptops was not transferred over to the students.
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It’s the responsibility of the school to not activate the webcams on the laptops inappropriately, under conditions not spelled out in the contract. Just because the contract didn’t specifically spell it out, doesn’t mean that the school was granted permission to do that.
If they were concerned about the kids accessing porn or doing drugs deals with the laptops, they had no business issuing them and demanding the students use them. The kids could have had access to the laptops at the school and or used the school computers where the school would have every right to monitor the computers and the kids would know that it had been going on.
I’d lay money on the fact that those parents did not sign a contract that warned them that the school would turn on the webcams and monitor the child’s activity at any time it chooses irrespective of the the laptops location, including the potential of it being in the child’s own bedroom.