Philladelphia School District Used Laptops With Video Cameras To Spy On Students?

[Formaldehyde]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/189797/pennsylvania_school_accused_of_cyberspying_on_students.html

Spoiler :

Pennsylvania School Accused of Cyberspying on Students
Brennon Slattery, PC World

Feb 19, 2010 10:12 am

A Philadelphia-area school district finds itself under scrutiny after remotely activating a MacBook Web cam and capturing a young student engaging in "improper behavior at home." The student was confronted by a Harrington High School official and shown photographs of his actions. These photographs set off privacy alarms and have led to a class-action lawsuit alleging that the school district has been spying on its students in their homes.

Christopher McGinley, the superintendent of Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, released a statement yesterday admitting the MacBook cameras could be remotely activated without the user's knowledge. McGinley claimed the remote camera activation was meant as a theft-prevention measure. "The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever," McGinley said.

In a letter on the Lower Merton School District's Web site, McGinley offers the draft of a revised plan addressing security concerns, promising:

•Immediate disabling of the security-tracking program.
•A thorough review of the existing policies for student laptop use.
•A review of security procedures to help safeguard the protection of privacy, including a review of the instances in which the security software was activated. We want to ensure that any affected students and families are made aware of the outcome of laptop recovery investigations.
•A review of any other technology areas in which the intersection of privacy and security may come into play.
"We regret if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families," McGinley added.

But "inconvenience" may be too soft a word. If the photographs of the young boy in question are of a sexual nature, Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al could turn into a case of child pornography.

The MacBooks were distributed to all 2300 students in the Lower Merton School District, much like a similar program enacted in Maine. The shame that could result if this explosive incident is true could damage the school's 1:1 laptop donation project and possibly sully the project's reputation nationwide.

Needless to say, this is a serious case. Many measures could've been implemented to avoid such a situation. ZDNet describes a few, including respecting a student's privacy when he or she is at home and informing parents of the remote control feature. Waivers should've been signed, school boards should've held meetings -- with so many cautionary measures to abide by, it's a mystery why this school district supposedly chose to ignore them all.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...f-using-webcam-to-photograph-student-at-home/

Spoiler :

School Accused of Using Webcam to Photograph Student at Home

By ROBERT MACKEY

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 other students whose privacy might 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, 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 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 he claimed that it was used only 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. The security feature, which was disabled today, was installed to help locate a laptop in the event it was reported lost, missing or stolen so that the laptop could be returned to the student.

Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature would be activated by the District’s security and technology departments. The security feature’s capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.

The suit does not say what the “improper behavior” was that the boy was accused of engaging in by the assistant principal, but a footnote to the claim that his privacy was unlawfully violated says: “Should discovery disclose that Defendants are in possession of images constituting child pornography” as defined by Pennsylvania law, the family reserves the right to add that to its list of complaints.

Dan Hardy and Bonnie Cook of The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the boy’s mother said on Thursday that she could not comment on specifics of the case on the advice of the family’s lawyers. They also reported:

Blake Robbins, answering the door at his home, said he, too, could not comment. With a mop of brown hair and clad in a black T-shirt and jeans, he smiled when told the suit had earned him a Wikipedia page and other Internet notoriety.

According to The Inquirer, “the Lower Merion district issued laptops to all 2,300 high school students, starting last school year at Harriton and later at Lower Merion High.” Now, Lower Merion students want to know if those devices were used to monitor their behavior.

While high school rumor mills are famously productive, the tech blog Gizmodo reported on Thursday that another student in the district claimed that some students had noticed the camera lights on their school-issued Apple laptops apparently turning on at random before the lawsuit was filed. According to the unnamed student:

Frequently, the green lights next to our iSight webcams will turn on. The school district claims that this is just a glitch. We are all doubting this now.

On Twitter one user who claimed to be a student in the district apparently decided to appeal for help to two of the highest authorities on the social network, writing late last night:

@BarackObama as our leader, how do you feel about the Blake Robbins vs Lower Merion suit? yes, we go to LM, and things are intense !!!

@nickjonas …. hey buddy so did you hear about the case in LOWER MERION vs Blake robbins…. intense stuff eh?

Discuss.

 

[JollyRoger]

If the kid is not incorporated, I don't see the problem here. The Supreme Court gives schools wide latitude in infringing on students, even off-campus.

 

[downtown]

Just to be a little nitpicky, but this isn't Philadelphia Public Schools, its a school in the Philly Area. PCS has had a nasty, public string of racial-violence, and I can see something like this being *slightly* more defensible there.

Haven't read the rest of the articles yet though.

edit: just saw that this was at home. Never mind, thats never ok.

 

[Patroklos]

Hmmmm, activating the camera at home is obviously out of line. I have no problem with them using that to monitor the students in school though, it is no different than the many cameras that are already there or the teacher there monitoring the class themselves for that matter. It may help with dicipline, you never know if the camera is watching you at your desk or not,

I think what would be more useful is a program so a teacher can monitor the students screens. We have this at Navy schools so the instuctor can make sure you are not just surfing the internet.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Just to be a little nitpicky, but this isn't Philadelphia Public Schools, its a school in the Philly Area. PCS has had a nasty, public string of racial-violence, and I can see something like this being *slightly* more defensible there.

Haven't read the rest of the articles yet though.

It is apparently a Philidelphia school district, but I changed the subject bar to be more "fair and accurate".

 

[trader/warrior]

Amazing that the school first spied on an underage student doing something of a sexual nature in the privacy of his own home and then confronted him with it as if it was any of their buisiness.

Might have to do with watching porn on school computers, but really how can they be that stupid?

Edit: Oh, noticed it's not actually certain it was sexual, just speculation it seems.

 

[Patroklos]

Amazing that the school first spied on an underage student doing something of a sexual nature in the privacy of his own home and then confronted him with it as if it was any of their buisiness.

Social workers run the schools these days. If he was using salt or nonfat milk they probably would have confronted him too.

 

[Narz]

Just to be a little nitpicky, but this isn't Philadelphia Public Schools, its a school in the Philly Area. PCS has had a nasty, public string of racial-violence, and I can see something like this being *slightly* more defensible there.

Haven't read the rest of the articles yet though.

Still don't see how that's defensible though. It's pretty sick when you think about it.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Hmmmm, activating the camera at home is obviously out of line. I have no problem with them using that to monitor the students in school though, it is no different than the many cameras that are already there or the teacher there monitoring the class themselves for that matter. It may help with dicipline, you never know if the camera is watching you at your desk or not,

I think what would be more useful is a program so a teacher can monitor the students screens. We have this at Navy schools so the instuctor can make sure you are not just surfing the internet.

Haha, so many kids would get busted if they did this at UCSC...I remember there was one time during lecture where instead of taking notes I was playing super mario bros, and the guy next to me was playing tetris.

As to the video cameras: schools have infringed on children's rights in much worse ways than simply spying on them, although outside of class is in my opinion a little too far.

 

[Patroklos]

The school is the school, there should be no expectation of privacy especially in openly public areas like a classroom or hallway. However, just have screen monitoring would remove the ability to spy at home. Even if they monitor your screen while you are at home its their property and they can just right that into the user agreement. Then there "required to use our equiment properly" excuse would fly much better.

 

[useless]

I believe the school could possibly be charged with own Pedophilic content, given that some the laptops contains photos of people in a state of undress.

 

[illram]

No way this can be defensible in any way shape or form.

 

[bhsup]

Have we found a topic that actually unites CFC OT? Totally indefensible, and I hope the school district gets nailed to the wall.

 

[MobBoss]

Yes, its a violation of their privacy. However, Ima thinking if the school can do it, anyone else can too. amiright?

 

[useless]

Yes, its a violation of their privacy. However, Ima thinking if the school can do it, anyone else can too. amiright?

So i take it you're defending this school and their invasion of privacy and possible pedophilia charges

 

[civ_king]

VRWCAgent, Where do you want to waterboard them (only if they violated the law)

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

This news made me cover my own laptop's webcam with tape. Yeah, I'm paranoid about cybersecurity.

 

[JohnRM]

The school is the school, there should be no expectation of privacy especially in openly public areas like a classroom or hallway. However, just have screen monitoring would remove the ability to spy at home. Even if they monitor your screen while you are at home its their property and they can just right that into the user agreement. Then there "required to use our equiment properly" excuse would fly much better.

I'm not sure if that is true. It is mandatory for children to attend school. In general, parents do not have much of a choice, in that matter. If it is mandatory that children use these computers, then there really is not "user agreement". Can't really agree to something if you have no choice. So, I think that this is a big question to answer, if we are to take your position on the matter.

Of course, one strip of tape over the web-cam = problem solved.

 

[Miles Teg]

Have any of the kids used the webcam to have cybersex or shoot porn? If not, shame on them for dropping the ball.

 

[Shadylookin]

"improper behavior at home."

Unless he was killing people I don't see where an school official has the right to tell you what you do in the privacy of your own home is improper.

McGinley claimed the remote camera activation was meant as a theft-prevention measure. "The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever," McGinley said.

Then how did they get images of a student doing "improper" things at home?

Haha, so many kids would get busted if they did this at UCSC...I remember there was one time during lecture where instead of taking notes I was playing super mario bros, and the guy next to me was playing tetris.

As to the video cameras: schools have infringed on children's rights in much worse ways than simply spying on them, although outside of class is in my opinion a little too far.

a webcam can't take pictures of whats on the screen.