Skipper
February 19, 2010, 3:20am
1
Okay … the thread title was a bit sarcastic, but regardless, this article gets a great big WTF.
What IT idiot thought it would be a good idea to pitch this feature as something to use on the students while at the house ? “You see Principal Skinner, then we could turn on the remote camera and catch them doing whatever it is we want to punish them for!”
A suburban Philadelphia school district remotely activates the cameras in school-provided laptops to spy on students in their homes, a lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday alleged.
According to the lawsuit filed by a high school student and his parents, the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa. has spied on students and families by “indiscriminate use of and ability to remotely activate the Webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the School District.”
Approximately 1,800 students at the district’s two high schools have been given laptops as part of a state- and federally-funded “one-to-one” student-to-laptop initiative.
Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., said they first found out about the alleged spying last November after their son Blake was accused by a Harriton High School official of “improper behavior in his home” and shown a photograph taken by his laptop.
An assistant principal at Harriton later confirmed that the district could remotely activate the Webcam in students’ laptops. “Michael Robbins thereafter verified, through [Assistant Principal] Ms. Matsko, that the school district in fact has the ability to remotely activate the Webcam contained in a student’s personal laptop computer issued by the school district at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the Webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer,” the lawsuit stated.
Also here and here .
Skipper
February 19, 2010, 3:25am
3
Thanks Dan … I missed the thread.
Carry on … nothing to see here. Move along.
