Illinois Law Requires Students To Turn Over Facebook Passwords

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I was about to ask how this can even be legal and then I realized this is an actual law that went into effect on January 1st in Illinois. :eek:

If your child has an account on a social networking website, e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, ask.fm, etc., please be aware that State law requires school authorities to notify you that your child may be asked to provide his or her password for these accounts to school officials in certain circumstances.
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As a resident of IL I will be teaching my daughter to never give up her passwords to anything.

Her school can go fuck itself. If there is a criminal matter at hand call the police and let them do their job.

Fucking twats.
 
xCWolf said:
I feel like this violates the child's constitutional rights
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The school can ask whatever the fuck they want. It's a question of whether or not the kids are dumb enough to give in.

What we need is a law that prohibits schools from even asking for this type of information.
 
Good luck enforcing it! Those social media accounts will be sanitized or deleted long before school admins demand the password.

It is just another typical shitty and not thought out knee jerk law to "save the kids." I would bet even a crappy ambulance chasing attorney would win a suit against the school for using this law to punish a kid. Even if the kid is an asshole.
 
The law covers all social media so for people who don't wanna read the article, it applies to more than just Facebook.

I think it's a little over the line to legalize that, but then again, parents in IL would prolly be super duper smart to make sure their children don't have social media accounts to avoid the problem until it goes up the ladder of courts and either upheld or overturned. It's super simple to avoid cyberbullying and junk (i mean doing it as much as being the target of it) by blocking access to it.
 
xCWolf said:
I feel like this violates the child's constitutional rights
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SCOTUS has allowed minors fewer constitutional rights than adults ... for instance schools can legally search lockers without search warrants and have fairly intrusive searches of students on campus ... free speech rights are also typically limited in school ...

I don't see that this would accomplish much as the account would be cleaned up as soon as a request is made ... personally I think they should just send the cyberbullying stuff though the regular criminal justice system and keep the schools out of it
 
Private contract between software provider and user. Server not located at school.

What am I missing?
 
After reading this thread, I just read it again and it seems to imply something different than how some people here are interpreting it.

If your child has an account on a social networking website, e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, ask.fm, etc., please be aware that State law requires school authorities to notify you that your child may be asked to provide his or her password for these accounts to school officials in certain circumstances.
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That only says that state law requires the school notify parents that their children may be asked to provide their passwords to the school. So the law only addresses the notification of parents, rather than allowing the school the rights to attendee's passwords.
 
Unless the students are accessing a social site on the school's hardware or network then it's none of their business.

Yes, something needs to be done about bullying, be it in person or online, but expecting the school investigating what is happening outside the school isn't the answer.
 
I just read the law, and it says absolutely nothing about requiring kids to give up their social media passwords.

That is entirely the interpretation of one particular school district through their letter to parents.
 
Easy solution:

Manage your childs social media passwords yourself, then they cannot be pressured into giving them to the school.

But I agree this is total BS and not enforcable, but school administrators will just use fear tactics to get the information out of the kid.

Poor kids these days, sucks that this is the new reality.
 
You have a constitutional right not to convict yourself. That's the 5th Amendment. There's no law anywhere that says a person has to legally give up information that might incriminate them. It's unconstitutional.

This law will be thrown out.

I taught my younger siblings, and will teach my children when they are old enough to never, ever, under and circumstances talk to the police without a lawyer. It's information that can and will be used against you (and by law cannot be used for you), so you have nothing to gain, ever, by talking to them without a lawyer present and everything to lose.
 
tikiman2012 said:
This law is unenforceable.
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This.

On top of that, I don't think we should be trying to wipe out bullying in school. It's a nice notion and all but I think it would be catastrophic if we were to succeed. If we wiped it out and kids spent the first 18 years without learning how to deal with it, they are going to get a very rude awakening when they get tossed into the real world.
 
If it was my child, and they told them to kiss their ass, I would back that child up 100%.

This fascist shit makes me wanna puke.
 
Supreme Court rules under 1st admendment and 4th protections, that passwords to private accounts can't be forced to be given over to government entities without a warrant. This rule also includes hiring practices. (Potential employer can not force you to give up your fb account details)
 
For anyone other than the owner of the Facebook account to access the particular account is a violation of Facebook's ToS. According to the CFAA, "unauthorized access" to a "private computer" is a criminal offense. By violating Facebook's ToS, anyone, including school official, can be charge with unauthorized access to a private computer under the CFAA.
Does this sound ridiculous? Maybe. However this has already occurred.

United States v. Drew
 
xCWolf said:
I feel like this violates the child's constitutional rights
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As I see it, if you are under 18, all of your "constitutional rights" come by way of your parents.

No child should have an account of any kind their parents don't know all the passwords and PIN's to, and if the school has a problem, they should be approaching the parents, not the child.
 
kbrickley said:
SCOTUS has allowed minors fewer constitutional rights than adults ... for instance schools can legally search lockers without search warrants and have fairly intrusive searches of students on campus ... free speech rights are also typically limited in school .../QUOTE]

Well, to be fair, the lockers are the property of the school, not of the children. As such the school should be able to do whatever the fuck they wish with the lockers.

I hardly believe tenancy and domicile law applies to a locker. :p
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Commander FAT said:
As a resident of IL I will be teaching my daughter to never give up her passwords to anything.

Her school can go fuck itself. If there is a criminal matter at hand call the police and let them do their job.

Fucking twats.
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Yea Illinois is a joke, I'm a resident as well. I'll have to pass this on to my brother-in-law so he can tell his kids the same.
 
KarsusTG said:
This.

On top of that, I don't think we should be trying to wipe out bullying in school. It's a nice notion and all but I think it would be catastrophic if we were to succeed. If we wiped it out and kids spent the first 18 years without learning how to deal with it, they are going to get a very rude awakening when they get tossed into the real world.
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On the other hand, very few (if any) adults have to put up with the level of shit kids have to put up with in school.

This is the equivalent of teaching a kid to safely handle candles in a home, by dropping them alone from an airplane in a forest fire, armed with nothing but a match.
 
NeghVar said:
For anyone other than the owner of the Facebook account to access the particular account is a violation of Facebook's ToS. According to the CFAA, "unauthorized access" to a "private computer" is a criminal offense. By violating Facebook's ToS, anyone, including school official, can be charge with unauthorized access to a private computer under the CFAA.
Does this sound ridiculous? Maybe. However this has already occurred.

United States v. Drew
Click to expand...

While what happened in the Drew case was pretty shitty, it seems rather different than accessing an account that doesn't belong to you. (which I agree is a crime under the CFAA)

From my understanding, they created a fake account and "friended" the girl, and obtained information that way. It seems kind of juvenile for an adult to partake in teen gossip to that extent, and really shitty when they started bullying the girl, but the legal charges in this case make absolutely no sense.
 
Simple solution: It's not me, someone made a fake profile with my information. I can't give you the password.

/solved
 
Zarathustra[H];1041377645 said:
While what happened in the Drew case was pretty shitty, it seems rather different than accessing an account that doesn't belong to you. (which I agree is a crime under the CFAA)

From my understanding, they created a fake account and "friended" the girl, and obtained information that way. It seems kind of juvenile for an adult to partake in teen gossip to that extent, and really shitty when they started bullying the girl, but the legal charges in this case make absolutely no sense.
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The point is that both scenarios are violations of Facebook's ToS
 
Even more simple solution, say no.

I'm not sure why they need a "bully's" password, all the evidence of the bullying is already there on the victim's end.
 
NeghVar said:
The point is that both scenarios are violations of Facebook's ToS
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Fair enough, but accessing an account that does not belong to you is a direct violation of CFAA, ToS or not, correct? This would seem to place it in a different category.
 
Make a dummy account, provide password to unused account, plus fb loves that, bigger member numbers.
 
Does anyone here actually read?

What you're all bitching about is NOT A LAW. The whole article is one particular school's interpretation of a law that states NOTHING about requiring people to give up their credentials.
 
Steve said:
I was about to ask how this can even be legal and then I realized this is an actual law that went into effect on January 1st in Illinois. :eek:
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One should never waive their 5th amendment rights. Ever.

Where state law infringes upon federally-guaranteed rights (e.q. 5th Amendment) Federal law trumps.

(There will be people who disagree and they may refer to a case (can't remember the defendant's name) where courts ruled he had to turn over his password to unencrypt a laptop drive. Those people should remember, however, that the person in question openly stated to law enforcement that the evidence they were seeking does, in fact, reside on the laptop...that's why that case was decided in favor of forcing him to give up the password. If he'd kept his mouth shut, there wouldn't have been probable cause to search the laptop in the first place)
 
notarat said:
One should never waive their 5th amendment rights. Ever.

Where state law infringes upon federally-guaranteed rights (e.q. 5th Amendment) Federal law trumps.

(There will be people who disagree and they may refer to a case (can't remember the defendant's name) where courts ruled he had to turn over his password to unencrypt a laptop drive. Those people should remember, however, that the person in question openly stated to law enforcement that the evidence they were seeking does, in fact, reside on the laptop...that's why that case was decided in favor of forcing him to give up the password. If he'd kept his mouth shut, there wouldn't have been probable cause to search the laptop in the first place)
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Also worth keeping in mind:

Biometric security does not have these protections. Lock something with fingerprints, retina scans, face pictures, etc, and you CAN legally be compelled to unlock it.

Only a password protects you.
 
Ask away. Does the law provide any real penalty for non-compliance with the request?

Anyone have chapter and verse for the actual statute?
 
I'm guessing what they'll do is make it mandatory volunteered. You don't have to give the password, but you'll be suspended until you do for "safety".

Here in Nevada, you don't have to submit to a breathalyzer, but by not doing so, your license is suspended for 6months automatically by the DMV - regardless of guilt! They get away with this because driving is a " privilege " and not a right.

I'm guessing IL will use the same argument that public schools are a privilege.
 
The law doesn't require this, but the schools are saying it does to force kids to turn over their passwords.
 
Sounds like what happened to me. A school in AZ when my kid was going to 5 years ago, required all kids get finger printed so they don't have to remember and ID. I fought that and my son was probably the kid that had to remember his 6 digit ID. Fast forward 2 years, and finger print system was gone. That was my whole point, how could they guarantee me that they have uber firewalls, that the computers were encrypted along with the network, and how they were going to protect it from theft, and that the data would never go anywhere. Feel sorry for the other parents. Who know where the data went?

That's fcken crazy!

I would not comply.
 
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