Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
http://www.pcworld.com/article/189797/pennsylvania_school_accused_of_cyberspying_on_students.html
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...f-using-webcam-to-photograph-student-at-home/
Discuss.
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 boys 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 boys 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 districts Web site late Thursday night, Christopher W. McGinley, Lower Merions 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 Districts security and technology departments. The security features capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operators 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 boys mother said on Thursday that she could not comment on specifics of the case on the advice of the familys 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.