School Uses Students' PCs To Spy on Them at Home

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Let me get this straight, there is a school out there that spies on kids at home using the built in webcam on laptops issued to the students? You have got to be kidding me. Who thought that was a good idea? Blame long time [H] reader qdemn7 for the link.

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence.
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WTF??? Seriously, is that even legal? I'd sue the shit out of that school for violation of my privacy. Spying on kids......and if the kid is naked in his room, then the school is liable for child pornography.


I don't think they thought this one through very well.
 
Reminds me of the Dell story where the technician activated some woman's webcam remotely without her permission.
 
The school isn't liable for shit. All they have to do is throw the 'protecting the children' bull and they can get away with anything.
 
Where do you even begin to address the actual wrongness of this? Not just from a legal point of view but from the point of view of mere decency and at the least, privacy, and within your own home no less.

This has lawsuit written all over it and I imagine the administrators will point to a clause in the contract allowing them the 'right' to activate the device anywhere and at anytime. This is what happens when the state thinks it has total control over your life and schools are the front line because of how the indoctrination of children works. This shouldn't even have existed on any meaningful level and I'm frankly amazed that some legal beagle said this was okay.
 
Unless it was specifically stated that there would be peeping by the school staff, someone needs to have their @55 kicked. Being the proud American that I am, I will volunteer to do the kicking.
 
Doesn't sound possible. Someone was misquoted or wrongly phrased about the case at some point.
 
I went to this school district from elementary through high school. I wonder which school they are talking about.
 
Next week's news: "School closes due to lawsuits"

Speaking of education; here is my jerk-ish grammar rant:
You can't really "have got" something. You can have something, you can get something, but once you get it, you have it.
 
oh the Irony...schools in a panic about students divulging personal information....LOL...but its ok for the school to be privy to anything they want... off hours and in their own home...comedy gold

people need to get over a lot of this crap. haunt you when going for a job in 10 years? the stuff i was doing online 10 years ago for the most part doesn't even exist anymore...if someone spends a decade updating their myspace site, those people have more to worry about when searching for a job than embarrassing photos...

OH NOEZ TEH INTARNETS!
 
Oh, WOW!

I can't wait to see this on the national news. This school district is about to have a major reorganization!

Someone should go to jail for this.
 
Wow. Doing it to "protect the children" eh? Sounds more like the school district is a bunch of pedophile peeping toms.
 
The real question is how many school districts (and other organizations) are doing this but aren't stupid enough to talk about it, therefore outing themselves as doing it?
 
Astronomica said:
The school isn't liable for shit. All they have to do is throw the 'protecting the children' bull and they can get away with anything.
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Not in this case. If the article is accurate then they violated the law in a big way. There is nothing they can say that justifies covertly spying on private citizens. They are a fucking school, not the NSA. They have zero authority to do this.

Epic mega fail. They did it at an affluent school too, so the parents will lawyer up to defcon-1.

As a responsible parent I work with my kids to make sure they have the mad ninja internet skills to survive. I also rule my home network like Thulsa Doom at a snake farm.
 
School provides a laptop - step one - whiteout over the integrated webcam.

I don't mind them tracking what's done on the laptop so much if the school retains ownership - but peeping at the user's a definite Hell No!
 
Methadras said:
Where do you even begin to address the actual wrongness of this? Not just from a legal point of view but from the point of view of mere decency and at the least, privacy, and within your own home no less.

This has lawsuit written all over it and I imagine the administrators will point to a clause in the contract allowing them the 'right' to activate the device anywhere and at anytime. This is what happens when the state thinks it has total control over your life and schools are the front line because of how the indoctrination of children works. This shouldn't even have existed on any meaningful level and I'm frankly amazed that some legal beagle said this was okay.
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Yup. This has lawsuit written all over it indeed! That's wrong on so many levels and the fact that they are school issued laptops doesn't give them any rights for 'monitoring' a damn thing. If I were a classmate that had one of these laptops I'd be placing some electrical tape over my webcam lens immediately. But that would probably violate the 'terms of use'. lol Time to buy your own laptop I guess.
 
Im glad this is only happening in north korea and not the "land of the free" ..
 
Sounds like a well deserved cash-in lawsuit is about to get underway and a few "school officials" are about to be terminated.

Frankly, this blatant abuse of rights warrants jail time for those that approved and used it.
 
They're going to say "our laptop, our rules". Too bad if you didn't read the fine prints.

Just watch.
 
That was a pretty sweet system they had going, but I would've kept my teenage girl webcam peeping on the down low.
 
in before the

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING...


Ffffuuuuccckkkk... Next thing ya know, the medicine in the bathroom wi'll be a camera and someone will be telling me what pills to take, what shows to watch, and when and how to bang my woman. :wtf:
 
Azhar said:
They're going to say "our laptop, our rules". Too bad if you didn't read the fine prints.

Just watch.
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That's probably what they're going to try to go with. A friend is in HS, everyone in his class got a laptop for school use.

But there are limits, certain things can't be accessed or d/l (like a messenger) which is ok. It is the school's property and it is for school work.

But having a cam on the laptop and peeping on your students at home? NO. I don't care what "our laptop, our rules" nonsense theory they try to use. This is wrong.

Kids can be sent to jail for "sexting" (which is stupid imo - the sending naked or half-naked pics of yourself to anyone and the law isn't too with it), so how on earth can there be any justification for an ADULT sitting there watching students who may just kinda sorta "oops" and see Susie Cheerleader or Joe the Jock half or fully naked in their own room - without knowing such a thing is even possible.

Uh uh, this crosses the line from rules for use of school property by students for school use to abuse by school officials.
 
Azhar said:
They're going to say "our laptop, our rules". Too bad if you didn't read the fine prints.

Just watch.
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They can monitor the laptop usage all they want. There's nothing that happens on the other side of the webcam that would qualify.
 
Azhar said:
They're going to say "our laptop, our rules". Too bad if you didn't read the fine prints.

Just watch.
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Within school, you are dealing with a place of public accommodation, and the school is acting in loco parentis. Kids have basically no privacy there, employees have no privacy there, and anyone who doesn't fall into either of those categories are unlikely to have a reasonable expectation they won't be observed by the aforementioned two groups. You'd have a hard time making criminal charges for wiretapping or peeping. The fact you probably agreed to something when accepting the laptop means you probably couldn't sue over monitoring done within school.

However, once you are talking about the home, there is definitely the potential for abuse, and the potential to be spying on people you never even remotely signed an agreement with in any way shape or form.

My guess is that since it is video, probably without audio, the peeping laws and wiretapping laws are probably kind of vague enough to avoid criminal charges. However, there is likely enough merit for a lawsuit as within the home, there is an expectation of privacy, especially by any guests/residents who have not signed any kind of binding contract, and the school acting in loco parentis when said parents are not absent is kind of dodgy.
 
ianken said:
Not in this case. If the article is accurate then they violated the law in a big way. There is nothing they can say that justifies covertly spying on private citizens. They are a fucking school, not the NSA. They have zero authority to do this.
.
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While I am no means condoning what the school did... these are school computers that were lent to the students. So it's their own property, and it wouldn't surprise me if in some form the parents had to sign to promise they'd replace if damaged and in that it agreement there's probably some cleverly worded bit about "monitoring"

But seriously, WTF laptops for students? Christ. The district has enough money to buy laptops to lend their students, and looking at some of the schools in the district they have absurdly low teacher/student ratios, high school it's like 11 students for each teacher, and elementary schools it's around 8 to 1!!! And these are public schools too not private! So the area apparently is a rich area, why the hell don't the students have their own computers?

I am curious what this "inappropriate behavior" actually was, was he smoking weed with his friends? he's a teenager so was he flogging the dolphin to some online entertainment? was he nailing his girlfriend while his parents were out?
 
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