School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

[UGAalum94]

I don't think many parents sit back and take it when schools do bad stuff to their kids, nor should they, but there are a lot of people who don't read the fine print when they sign the paperwork for something that seems beneficial and no cost to them.

I doubt the contract spelled out approval to spy on the kids, but I think it's possible that it granted freedom to monitor use of the computer in a way that the district thought that covered what they were doing, and that, assuming that the district did only what they say they did, I suppose the court will have decide the limits of.

Have you seen the photo of the kid in question or seen direct reference to what happened to him with the school, other than his own suit? I've seen comments about candy, but I've also seen comments, maybe on ATL, about the kid having a lot of drug references on his publicly accessible facebook page, including photos that appeared to have been taken with his webcam.

I'd be about as baffled about why school personnel would try to act on what they saw on a kid's facebook or even why they'd be looking at it, but I think it's possible, if the comments about his facebook are correct, that a principal could say something to the kid about drug use based on having seen the image elsewhere.

I have reservations about whether it's plausible that the school used the software exactly as they claim, but I also have reservations about believing that the kid was disciplined at school because they took a picture of him taking what they thought was a pill at home.

It just doesn't make sense no matter how they gained their knowledge. Schools don't typically, in my experience, try to investigate and punish kids for their off campus drug use.

It will be really interesting to see what else comes out in the case, assuming that it gets released to the public.

It's not that I don't think the district lacks a motive to lie, but I think that the kid's claims are suspect too.

ETA: well, I can think of some cases in which schools tried to drug test kids with either blanket testing or random testing, and I've seen consequences in extra-curriculars for arrests or convictions, but the policies were either pretty immediately legally challenged or so ridiculously spelled on in advance to make them hard to compare to this. For all the reasons that you think, Peppy, that the parents wouldn't have signed terms that granted the school too much ability to monitor the kids, I can't see how the district or any of its personnel would think that doing what they are accused of was ever going to fly. If you work in a relatively lawyered up community, you learn to be sensitive to the legal limits of your authority, I think. The behavior they are accused of just seems so legally risky as to defy belief unless maybe they thought they had advanced permission because of the scope of releases to participate or they really did use it in the limited way they claim. But I guess I've been amazed by stupidity before.

[UofM-TKE]

The civil lawsuit filed by the parents of the student involved in this case with the US Eastern District of PA is online now. There seems to be a lot more to it than was originally known, if you can believe the plaintiff's attorney. http://media.philly.com/documents/MotiontoCompel.pdf

PHILADELPHIA — A suburban Philadelphia family claiming school employees spied on students through school-supplied laptops says tracking software captured thousands of images of students. The motion filed Thursday by the family of Harriton High School student Blake Robbins says the records provided to them by Lower Merion School District also asserts that staff members viewed the images as a window into a school "soap opera."Robbins filed a federal lawsuit in February claiming the district spied on students in their homes.

District officials have acknowledged secretly activating webcams to locate 42 missing laptops. They say Robbins' webcam was activated because he wasn't authorized to take the laptop home.
A school attorney says there's no indication that images were misused.

[33girl]

Ewwwww. That Carol Cafiero chick sounds beyond creepy.

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by UofM-TKE

The civil lawsuit filed by the parents of the student involved in this case with the US Eastern District of PA is online now. There seems to be a lot more to it than was originally known, if you can believe the plaintiff's attorney. http://media.philly.com/documents/MotiontoCompel.pdf

This doesn't surprise me one bit. These are people just like any others, who just happen to have a position of power. Doesn't mean they're necessarily anymore trustworthy or decent than another.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB

This doesn't surprise me one bit. These are people just like any others, who just happen to have a position of power. Doesn't mean they're necessarily anymore trustworthy or decent than another.

In you experience, would a case not get this far without merit?

I'm not particularly amazed that school personnel would screw up or abuse power, but it sort of surprises me that you are willing to accept the plaintiffs case as fact.

Is it because of your legal experience and how things typically play out? Or more because it goes along with your general view of human nature and how people with unchecked/unmonitored authority are willing to behave?

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

In you experience, would a case not get this far without merit?

I'm not particularly amazed that school personnel would screw up or abuse power, but it sort of surprises me that you are willing to accept the plaintiffs case as fact.

Is it because of your legal experience and how things typically play out? Or more because it goes along with your general view of human nature and how people with unchecked/unmonitored authority are willing to behave?

I'm no lawyer, so obviously not based on legal experience. Just going with my gut that most people who would use this type of tool are probably doing it because they're voyeurs or snoopy, and using the "we had to turn on the webcam to locate the computers!" excuse as a convenient coverup for why they really want to use it. Occur to you that this spyware is ideal for pedophiles?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB

I'm no lawyer, so obviously not based on legal experience. Just going with my gut that most people who would use this type of tool are probably doing it because they're voyeurs or snoopy, and using the "we had to turn on the webcam to locate the computers!" excuse as a convenient coverup for why they really want to use it. Occur to you that this spyware is ideal for pedophiles?

No doubt this program is really creepy, but I don't think there are a disproportionate number of pedophiles working in schools really. If anything, I think the school system was probably kind of naive about the potential for abuse and thought they have protection in place in terms of records and whatever about how it was used.

And honestly, there's probably not too much that the average creep couldn't find out by looking at kids' facebook and myspace stuff, if the media is to be believed. Not that it justifies the school looking at the kids, but just that I don't think that creepiness or pedophilia was the driving force between setting the program up, if only because non-creeps signed off on the program and real creeps probably were aware of their more limitless, off-work options for creeping.

In hindsight, it would have been a whole lot better to try to go with some kind of GPS tracker on the laptop that couldn't be turned off, if that's what they were trying to do.

I don't know why I thought you were a lawyer, but I did.

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

No doubt this program is really creepy, but I don't think there are a disproportionate number of pedophiles working in schools really. If anything, I think the school system was probably kind of naive about the potential for abuse and thought they have protection in place in terms of records and whatever about how it was used.

And honestly, there's probably not too much that the average creep couldn't find out by looking at kids' facebook and myspace stuff, if the media is to be believed. Not that it justifies the school looking at the kids, but just that I don't think that creepiness or pedophilia was the driving force between setting the program up, if only because non-creeps signed off on the program and real creeps probably were aware of their more limitless, off-work options for creeping.

In hindsight, it would have been a whole lot better to try to go with some kind of GPS tracker on the laptop that couldn't be turned off, if that's what they were trying to do.

I don't know why I thought you were a lawyer, but I did.

I agree with this. I don't think there are necessarily more pedophiles in schools, just that a tool like this plays right into the hands of someone who might be interested in it for that purpose. But overall I just find this whole story to be creepy because of the naivete (or stupidity) of the administrators who would allow this software in the first place, not assuming that it could be used in all-the-wrong-ways. I feel that in their positions, they need to be thinking about cause and effect of their actions, and when it comes to children (even those "wild" teenagers), an abundance of caution should be taken to protect them. Then there's the legal issues I would think the district lawyers would be concerned about opening themselves up to.

Though I am not a lawyer, I do work in PR and work quite a bit in difficult situations...and I work frequently with lawyers