So your kid’s school district has given your kid a laptop to study on. Great idea! They can use them to work on homework, do research, and make multimedia presentations. And they come with webcams — which lets students talk to each other about their assignments, chat with teachers, and — oh yeah — lets the school spy on students without their or your knowledge:
According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools’ administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins’s child was disciplined for “improper behavior in his home” and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.
This is, of course, horrifying on so many levels that it’s hard to imagine someone green-lighting this policy. I mean, this is literally what Big Brother did in 1984 — spy on people using their telescreens, at random times, without their knowledge, hoping to catch them in a thoughtcrime. That the target was a student, rather than a grown-up, does not make this better. Indeed, it makes it worse — if the school is randomly spying on students who happen to have their computers on, how many images of students getting dressed did they pull up? How many intimate conversations between partners did they save video from? Not to mention that even if they just got a picture of my kid sitting at their computer, doing her homework like a perfect human being, who the hell is a school district to take pictures of my child without my or her knowledge or her permission?
Add to it the fact that the student in question was punished for “improper behavior in his home” — which, last I checked, is not school — and you have a district where every administratior in the school, plus the Superintendent, should be summarily dismissed.
I’m going to say it now: if my daughter is doing something “improper” in her home, it’s none of her school’s business. It’s my business, and her mom’s, and believe me, we’ll be happy to punish her if we need to. But that punishment does not need to come from the school. Indeed, I’d prefer it didn’t.
No, I want my daughter’s school to educate her — something most schools do a very good job of, including, might I add, my daughter’s school. They — and other schools — should continue to educate. Parenting, however, needs to be left to the parents. And if a kid has bad parents — well, there are things that the school can do to help the kid. But spying on them randomly is not one of them.
(Via Amanda)
Has there been any statement on how the people who arranged this thought that they had any justification or authority to do so? What responsibility of theirs do they think was being applied here?
This really goes on the list of Things That Are So Insane My Brain Hurts When I Read Them.
Tragically, the list is long.
I doubt it. I really, really doubt it.
What we have here is a complaint. Some kid says that the school is doing this. As evidence, the complaint presents this kid saying that some junior hitler on school staff said she had the power to do it, and that further, she had a picture of him doing bad stuff!
And that’s the extent of the evidence: one hearsay statement from a teen, in a scenario where there’s an easy temptation for the authority figure to pretend to power in order to get a miscreant to cop to something. Oldest trick in the book; “your partner ratted you already”, “I have a security video that shows you at the scene”, etc.
So, no.
Either way, Robert, the assistant principal needs to be fired.
If the program did actually exist, every administrator with knowledge of this program should be fired. That includes the assistant principal.
If the program didn’t exist, the assistant principal imposed punishment for an imaginary crime and needs to be fired.
The student’s father alleges that the assistant principal verified to him that the school district had that ability, so it isn’t just the student’s claim.
I don’t doubt it Robert. I work in IT and probably it is unavoidable to have the ABILITY to do this (have control over the laptops, be able to remotely control them, etc). However, it is definitely unethical to use a picture obtained through that administrative access.
The admins of a company’s pc’s or a school’s pc’s are going to be able to see everything you do, read your mail, look through your files, etc. The question is what should they be allowed to do with that information? How much privacy should users/students expect?
Robert:
According to the suit, the student was disciplined for improper behaviour at home, and that the assistant principal confirmed to the parents that it was possible for school administrators to access the laptop webcams at any time.
If both these facts are true – and I acknowledge that perhaps they are not, but there is clearly more to the lawsuit than your summary – there’s a serious, serious problem. I can’t imagine why school administrators should be able to discipline children for actions taken at home, much less have a remote window into students’ homes. Perhaps the parents misunderstood what they were told by the assistant principal (for example, she may have meant that in theory the webcams could be activated at any time, not that school officials were actually doing so), but that’s still problematic in my opinion. Even in the absence of an official policy that mandates spying on students, I don’t think that schools should create situations in which spying on students at home is possible.
Five years ago, I wrote an article about schools disciplining students for things the kids did out of school, not at school-sponsored activities but entirely on their own time, that the schools found out about by looking at kids’ MySpace pages. The administrators were quite happy to talk about it and felt they were acting entirely appropriately. This story is just taking that thought process to the next level.
Jake – either way the assistant principal should be fired, IF WHAT THE PLAINTIFF IS ALLEGING IS TRUE.
There has been nothing presented (as of this date) that points in either direction.
As to the ability for school administrators to be able to activate the webcams…
It’s possible but unlikely that a school system would have the ability to get this working.
So remember kids, if your school gives you a laptop be sure to reinstall the operating system before you begin using it.
And then, of course, there’s the question of what the school or other authorities will do once they’ve obtained the evidence of “improper behavior”:
nojojojo
Seriously? They threatened to sue the girls? For taking pictures of each other? Seriously?
Also: There is a reason I disabled the camera on my laptop. And it’s not even government issued.
lauren,
They didn’t threaten to sue the girls. They threatened to have them criminally charged.
What’s ironic is that oftentimes, schools are reluctant to do anything at all about cyberbullying, since it isn’t on school property. But someone doing something “improper” at home warrants discipline.
chingona
Right. That’s what I meant (I get English legal terms mixed up sometimes. Thanks for pointing it out to me).
I just don’t get it. I mean, apart from the question of who even comes up with charges like that- don’t child pornography laws state that they are meant to protect children from others? Adults, who abuse them? Not same age (girl)friends who they are having fun with.
Also, doesn’t a criminal charge depend on intent or negligence ? Even if other children were possible perpetrators, wouldn’t the lack of intent to use them/ share them for sexual excitation prevent them from being charged?
Argh. I am hurting my brain trying to approach something this f***ed up from a rational perspective.
I’m not at all surprised.
The things that school-computers can do, and are set up to do, are terrifying.
Just came across this response from the school board in question, via the comments on the Agitator.
I’m not sure how much bearing it has on this case, but it does sound like under certain circumstances the board had a policy of using the webcams to track the computers:
If this were my school board, I’d want some explanation of just how they were going to prevent abuse of their ability to remotely activate the cameras on these computers.
There also isn’t enough information in the letter to tell if parents had previously been notified about this ability, but if I were sending this out to cover my own ass, personally I would have cited the date of the original notification and its exact wording. I do find it hard to believe that the school board wouldn’t have anticipated some slight legal issue with introducing cameras into someone else’s home without informing them of that fact regardless of the usage policy, though.
That explanation certainly doesn’t square with an allegation of “improper” behavior. If the feature was only used “for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop,” why would a vice principal have a photo on file that was being used to discipline a student? Using an image to locate a computer and only to locate a computer means that it’s not being used for disciplinary purposes. The fact that it appears to have been suggests that the district is not exactly being forthcoming.
Maybe he stole somebody’s laptop.
The complaint is available by a link from the linked site, and pages 5-7 contain the facts alleged by the plaintiff. It’s worth a read.
What it says is that the assistant principal notified the mother that there was a photograph showing inappropriate behavior saved on the school laptop. Sometime later, the father asked the assistant principal whether the school could activate the webcam remotely, and she told them that it did have that capability. Those are all the facts set forth so far by the plaintiff.
The complaint is only about the purported surveillance. It does not allege that the school disciplined the boy over his supposed behavior.
The plaintiff infers that the school took the picture remotely, but does not set forth any facts at this time to support that inference.
The facts as stated are also consistent with other possible explanations, such as the boy having taken a sexting picture of himself and the school discovering it during routine maintenance of the laptop (and the boy convincing his parents that the school took the photo).
I’m not saying that I disbelieve the complaint, only that I’d like to see more evidence before I can be convinced. There should be records on the laptop and the school’s server that would show whether the laptop had been accessed remotely; those could settle these questions definitively.
Not long ago, there was a special on TV about a school with laptops given to students. I don’t remember where or even what show it was though it was something of the Dateline variety (I was flipping channels and not paying much attention). A school administrator demonstrated how he could see what the kids were doing at their desks if they had their webcams on. They showed some kids using the camera as a mirror to fix makeup, etc. And if a student was wasting time, the man being interviewed could cause the camera to take a picture, and said generally when the students noticed the camera snap a picture they’d realize they were being monitored and get back to paying attention to the class.
Wherever this school was, they clearly had the capability. I’m not in IT but I’d imagine remote access is remote access, and doesn’t end when the laptop leaves school property. The only thing stopping surveillance of after school activities would be rules set up to prevent it and staff who followed the rules.
It does if you haven’t installed software on the laptop that automatically connects to your school district server/network every time it is on and has a network or internet connection. That’s why I recommended that a student re-install the OS if they’re given a laptop. That software would be wiped out when you reformatted the disk. As a bonus, you could run Linux (Ubuntu is good and very easy to install and use) and avoid MS.
Wouldn’t it be nice if second-graders didn’t have to know how to install an OS in order to be safe from being spied on by their school laptop?
Reinstalling the OS might, however, be prohibited by the agreement under whcih students received the laptops. Even without the school sneaking any software withoutt eh students’ knowledge, some vendors may void the warranty if you do so.
On the complaint – it’s not going to list every detail of every fact; it’s a pleading, and the plaintiffs are likely expecting to find out more in discovery.
On evidence, it’s worth noting that the school district’s spokesman acknowledged that neither parents nor students were told that the school might take pictures and screen grabs; he also refused to say whether the student suing the school had his laptop reported stolen. The district also acknowledges that it activated those cameras 42 times.
I hate having to admit that I was wrong. Oh wait, it’s the blogosphere! I can find some picky point on which I was technically correct, insist that was the core of my argument, and retire undefeated!
But that would take time and it’s a busy day, so damn it. I was wrong.
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Another update on this story.
School districts admits that pictures were taken of the kid in question and that unauthorized pictures – that is, ones that were not related to a reported theft of a computer – were taken of several other kids, though it appears (for now) to be more mishandling/technical glitches, as opposed to deliberately targeting those kids. Parents of the other kids have been notified and invited to the school to review the pictures taken of their kids.
Also, more details about what the kid involved in the lawsuit was disciplined for and why the web cam was activated – apparently he didn’t pay the insurance fee. Not sure why they couldn’t just tell him he either needed to pay up or return the laptop.
h/t Pandagon