Blake Robbins and his family are suing the Lower Merion School District for something you wouldn’t expect a school to be sued for: spying on the kids using their laptops’ built-in cameras. But how?
The Lower Merion School District apparently gives many of its students school-provided laptops. Great thing to do right? Well maybe, if they are used by the school for the right reasons. According to the lawsuit, the Lower Merion School District are using the school-provided laptops for a wrong reason: using the webcam to spy on the students at home. The school administrator allegedly activated the webcams on the laptops remotely at recorded students activity AT HOME. The situation was first brought to attention by the Robbins family, whose kid was disciplined by the school by what the school called “improper behavior at home.” The school’s evidence? Pictures taken by the school-provided laptop without the consent or knowledge of the laptop’s user.
Some students from the same school district have come forward saying they also noticed suspicious activity with their webcams, such as the green light next to the camera on their Macbooks turning on seemingly by itself. For those who do not know, the green light being on usually means the camera itself is also on. According to the same students, when they went to the IT guy at the school to see what was wrong, he gave them excuses.
The school most likely used Apple Remote Desktop to turn on the cameras on the laptops. According to a Washington Post report from early yesterday morning, the school district has admitted to remotely activating its laptops’ webcams forty-two times over the last 2 years. Now the FBI is involved, determining if the school district violated any wiretapping or computer-privacy laws in the process. Dr. Christopher W. McGinley, Superintendent of the Lower Merion School District, sent an email out addressing the matter, saying , among other things, that the webcams were only accessed in efforts to retrieve stolen or lost laptops and that the webcams were only being accessed for security reason. The real reason stems from the fact that the school took unauthorized pictures of a student at home and used the pictures as evidence for discipline.
To me, this whole situation is crazy. Did the school really spying on thier students using school-provided laptops? I guess only time and a lawsuit will tell. Obviously I do not attend the Lower Merion School District, so I am in no way an expert in the matter.
Here is the lawsuit if you want to read it.
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