Friday, February 19, 2010
School officials in Pennsylvania are being sued by parents for spying on their children through the use of laptops equipped with webcams. The Lower Merion School District issued the computers to 1,800 high school students so they would have “24/7 access to school based resources and the ability to seamlessly work on projects and research at school and at home,” according to the lawsuit.
But students and parents claim they weren’t told the laptops’ webcams could be turned on remotely by school officials without warning. One family realized this had happened after their son, a student at Harriton High School in Rosemont, was informed by an assistant principal, Lindy Matsko, that the school knew he “was engaged in improper behavior in his home,” and provided a photograph from the webcam embedded in the minor’s personal laptop.
The lawsuit accuses the school district of invasion of privacy, theft of private information, and unlawful interception and access to electronic information.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Big Brother Is Here: Families Say Schools Snoop in Their Homes With District-Issued Laptops & Webcams (by Jeff Schreiber, Courthouse News Service)
Blake Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania) (pdf)
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