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Pennsylvania School Accused of Spying on Students at Home

by Terrence O'Brien on February 19, 2010 at 09:14 AM

If accusations made by a suit filed against Pennsylvania's Lower Merion School District on behalf of Harriton High School student Blake Robbins are true, we can't imagine a single valid defense for the school system's actions. According to the court documents, Robbins was disciplined last November by assistant principle Lindy Matsko for "improper behavior in the home." As evidence of this misconduct, Matsko produced a photo, secretly taken by the webcam on Robbins's laptop, which had been -- like those of all other Harriton High students -- issued to him by the school.

Let's ignore the fact that the student was disciplined for extracurricular actions, already a rather absurd concept. (Imagine if your child was given detention for failing to eat her vegetables and talking back to you.) The school is not accused of tracking student's browsing habits or e-mail, but rather of using software to quietly track them, without their knowledge, via the computer's built-in camera and microphone. Even worse, it appears the school is keeping those spy tools active when the students are off school property and in the (supposed) privacy of their own homes.

It's one thing to track student activity on school property, and with the students' knowledge. It's a completely different beast when the school doesn't disclose its monitoring habits and extends them beyond the school's property line.

Blake's parents, Michael and Holly, have filed a class action suit on behalf of all the district's students and families and are seeking unspecified damages. You can read the filing in its entirety here (PDF). [From: Boing Boing and U.S. District Court of Easter Pennsylvania (PDF)]

Update:
The Lower Merion School District has responded to the allegations leveled against it. The district claims that the tracking feature was included do deter and thwart the theft of the Apple laptops issued to students. The superintendent stated in an announcement that the system was only used in rare cases to locate PCs that were reported as missing or stolen, and it "has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose..." In an attempt to blunt controversy the district has deactivated the feature for the time being and says it wont reactivate it "without express written notification to all students and families." [From: Lower Merion School District]

Tags: lawsuit, privacy, school, spying, spyware, top, webcam

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