US school accused of web spying

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Parents in the US have accused a school of spying on children by remotely activating webcams on laptops.

A couple from Pennsylvania have filed a lawsuit against a school district which gave laptops to its high school pupils.

They say their son was told off by teachers for "engaging in improper behaviour in his home" and that the evidence was an image from his webcam.

Lower Merion School District says it has now deactivated a tracking device installed on the laptops.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8523807.stm

[WriteDown]

1. This truly is nuts. nt

[TwilightGardener]

2. My son had a school-issued laptop--this is awful. They invaded

the privacy of so many homes and families.

[Recursion]

3. Wasn't there a "Criminal Minds" about this? NT

[More_liberal_than_mo]

9. There was a NCIS episode

where terrorists held school kids hostage and the computer geek guy hacked into the classroom webcams so they could see and hear what was happening in the room. Evidently it's actually just as easy as they portray for a hacker to take control of anyone's webcam. This is really big brother stuff.

[derby378]

4. Total Information Awareness Storybook Time!

Seriously, what next? Assistant principals hiding in Mom's flower bushes watching the kids get dressed for school?!?

:grr:

[BanzaiBonnie]

5. And if they thought of doing this

How many other schools are doing this?

I would be beyond pissed. I am in fact very upset that this has happened in our country. But what do you expect when the government is allowed carte blanche to spy on its citizens.

There have been no repercussions for the government spying on US; listening in on our conversations, looking at our emails.

What do we expect!

[DrDan]

6. I think there is going to be more to this story

It just does not ring true to me.

[sabra]

7. School district admits installing covert webcam activation software on student laptops, denies wrong

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/19/school-district-admi.html

The Superintendant of the Lower Merion School District -- where parents have initiated a class action suit over the covert use of students' laptops to surveil them in school and at home -- has sent a letter to parents with more information about the spying. The school admits that there was spyware installed on students laptops that allowed for remote, covert activation of their webcams, but maintains that the measure was only to be used in the event of theft of the machine (some had speculated that the school was only able to surveil students' hard drives, and that the images of a student engaged in "misconduct" in his home that a vice-principal confronted the student with had been taken by the student, intentionally, and stored on the laptop's hard-drive, from which it was retrieved by the school administration -- this now seems not to have been the case). The school also claims that the system can only capture still images, not audio or video. They have disabled the system for now and deny that it was misused.

As a result of our preliminary review of security procedures today, I directed the following actions:
· 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.

[wtmusic]

8. "The intersection of privacy and security" - hmm

If the computer was stolen, I guess the school would find out anyway, no? Not buying the official line.

[hayu_lol]

10. Payback on this one is gonna be a bitch...lol

Kids are innovative and puters are very much their world. The number of young hackers at that school are undoubtedly figuring out a way to immediately embarrass school officials...perhaps links to the press/radio stations of official and confidential school matters.

Kids can be devious.

Payback!

[howaboutme]

11. Law suits?

So not only is the public being spied upon by these school administrators, but the public will be held financially responsible to pay the settlement. That doesn't sound too fair.

What we need is full accountability for those who work in the public sector such as education and law enforcement. When they do illegal acts they should be prosecuted just as would any private citizen. Their professional peer group should bear much of the financial burden by taking settlement dollars from their pension fund and reducing pension payouts.

Anyone with a web cam and mic equipped PC should understand that they can be used to spy on them.

[JPZenger]

12. Many complications

The Phila. Inquirer has a couple new angles on this story, today.

1. The school district apparently felt it had the right to activate the web cam because the family had not paid the $55 insurance fee that was required before the laptop could be removed from the high school. Therefore, it was missing or stolen, in their minds.

2. The family that filed the lawsuit lives in a $950,000 house, but owes money to everybody, including $30,000 to the PECO electric company. The family tried to get out of paying the electric bill because the father lost his job, but the PUC said that the debt was run up while he was still employed.

3. The father filed the lawsuit after the Ass. Vice Principal said she was going to put her allegations that the son was selling drugs into his PERMANENT RECORD.