A Philadelphia School district is facing charges of wire-tapping and privacy violations for using surveillance technology on students through school issued lap tops. The accusation is coming from Blake Robbins and his parents after the assistant principal at Harrington High School spoke with him about some questionable behavior he saw him doing at home.
The web cams on the computers are supposed to be set up to take a still photo of the operator and their screen when one of them is missing or stolen, Lower Merion School District Superintendent Christopher McGinley stated that:
"The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever."
The school district has distributed 2,300 computers to students. The lap tops are for educational purposes, not to spy on students outside of school grounds. The school is standing firm that the computers are not used for surveillance but experts in electronic privacy think that there could be a case for illegal wiretapping of students.
Here's the link to the full story on NPR's website:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123886828
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ReplyDeleteIt sounds like the school may have abused the laptop's security webcam feature, which would violate the security agreement and probably constitute an invasion of privacy.
ReplyDeleteBut why any student would do, in the principal's words, "something inappropriate" on a school computer is a mystery. Regardless of the student's expectation of privacy, it's a school computer and he should have known better. I'm surprised he's not too embarrassed about the circumstances of the discovery to drop the lawsuit. I also don't get why the assistant principal took pictures of a high school boy doing "something inappropriate." Someone should search HIS computer.