PA School Accused of Cyberspying on Students

by betterdaze 5 Replies latest social current

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  betterdaze

  Pennsylvania School Accused of Cyberspying on Students

  Brennon Slattery, PC World
  Feb 19, 2010 10:12 am

  A Philadelphia-area school district finds itself under scrutiny after remotely activating a MacBook Web cam and capturing a young student engaging in "improper behavior at home." The student was confronted by a Harrington High School official and shown photographs of his actions. These photographs set off privacy alarms and have led to a class-action lawsuit alleging that the school district has been spying on its students in their homes.

  Christopher McGinley, the superintendent of Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, released a statement yesterday admitting the MacBook cameras could be remotely activated without the user's knowledge. McGinley claimed the remote camera activation was meant as a theft-prevention measure. "The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever," McGinley said.

  In a letter on the Lower Merton School District's Web site, McGinley offers the draft of a revised plan addressing security concerns, promising:

  • 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.

  "We regret if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families," McGinley added.

  But "inconvenience" may be too soft a word. If the photographs of the young boy in question are of a sexual nature, Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al could turn into a case of child pornography.

  The MacBooks were distributed to all 2300 students in the Lower Merton School District, much like a similar program enacted in Maine. The shame that could result if this explosive incident is true could damage the school's 1:1 laptop donation project and possibly sully the project's reputation nationwide.

  Needless to say, this is a serious case. Many measures could've been implemented to avoid such a situation. ZDNet describes a few, including respecting a student's privacy when he or she is at home and informing parents of the remote control feature. Waivers should've been signed, school boards should've held meetings -- with so many cautionary measures to abide by, it's a mystery why this school district supposedly chose to ignore them all.
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  Elsewhere

  Months ago people at work laughed at me when I put a piece of black tape over the camera on my work laptop.

  They ain't laughing anymore.
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  VM44

  One should know what software is running on the computer they are using.
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  FreudianSlip

  Wow.. that is creepy..
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  MissingLink

  This teacher needs to go on the registered sex offenders list and never be allowed to work in education again.

  How stupid can they be?
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  betterdaze

  FBI, grand jury now probing high school's webcam spying (Updated)

  By Jacqui Cheng | Last updated February 22, 2010 11:57 AM

  The furor over the Harriton High School webcam spying caper continues to grow. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is now investigating whether the school broke any federal wiretap laws when it remotely spied on a student at home, an anonymous official told the Associated Press. A federal grand jury has also subpoenaed the school for records related to the so-called "security" measures implemented on the laptops that allowed officials to activate the webcams to see people using them, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

  The Lower Merion School District (LMSD) has also started talking to the press about the incident. Spokesman Doug Young told the AP that the school had activated the webcams on the school-issued laptops 42 times over the last year or so, but never to spy on the students. LMSD had said on Friday—when it decided to indefinitely suspend the practice—that the feature was there solely for security purposes in order to locate lost or stolen laptops.

  With more than 2,300 of these laptops issued across the district, it's impractical to assume that every student was in danger of being spied on. However, it's clear that LMSD knows where it ran afoul: by not letting parents know about the feature when having them sign the paperwork for the computers. "There was no specific notification given that described the security feature," Young told the Inquirer. "That notice should have been given, and we regret not giving it. That... was a significant mistake."

  A "significant mistake" barely describes the situation now that there's not only a lawsuit, but the FBI is also involved. As of Monday morning, the school's lawyers are being called to court so a judge can decide whether to bar the school from removing data from any of the 2,300 laptops.

  The students all have their pet theories on what's really going on, too. On Friday, we quoted one former Harriton High School student (who had originally posted his comments on Digg) who said he and his friends noticed the webcam's green light come on "from time to time," and some students worried that the school's IT admins had been spying on them. Another current student e-mailed Ars to say that the light does turn on occasionally, but only after a reboot —something he assumes to be a "Mac hardware glitch" (one that none of us on staff have ever experienced on our Macs; perhaps it could be a glitch of the software used to remotely access the laptops).

  The current student did say, however, that the entire student population has been aware of the school's ability to turn on the webcams for quite some time due to "a widely circulated story that one of our laptops ended up in Pakistan, and they were taking pictures of the current owner." How this information never managed to make it to any of the parents is a mystery, and we are still left wondering what student Blake J. Robbins could have been doing in front of his MacBook to warrant being disciplined for "improper behavior."

  Update: Blake Robbins' attorney spoke to NBC Philadelphia (video link) and claims the school "caught" Robbins with two Mike & Ike candies in his hand, which look like pills. The student apparently eats the candies "religiously" and the school overreacted to the image.