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

[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

[UofM-TKE]

This is the latest from the Lower Merion Webcam case. I live kind of close to the area.

Pa. district took 56,000 images on student laptops.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_laptop...ng_on_students

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer – Tue Apr 20, 8:24 am ET
PHILADELPHIA – A suburban school district secretly captured at least 56,000 webcam photographs and screen shots from laptops issued to high school students, its lawyer acknowledged Monday.

"It's clear there were students who were likely captured in their homes," said lawyer Henry Hockeimer, who represents the Lower Merion School District.

None of the images, captured by a tracking program to find missing computers, appeared to be salacious or inappropriate, he said. The district said it remotely activated the tracking software to find 80 missing laptops in the past two years. The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported Monday on the large number of images recovered from school servers by forensic computer experts, who were hired after student Blake Robbins filed suit over the tracking practice.

Robbins still doesn't know why the district deployed the software tracking program on his computer, as he had not reported it lost or stolen, his lawyer said.

The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into possible wiretap violations by the district, and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, of Pennsylvania, has introduced a bill to include webcam surveillance under the federal wiretap statute.