School Caught Spying In Kids' Bedrooms With Laptops

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

By Cory Doctorow at 11:49 PM February 17, 2010

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.

If true, these allegations are about as creepy as they come. I don't know about you, but I often have the laptop in the room while I'm getting dressed, having private discussions with my family, and so on. The idea that a school district would not only spy on its students' clickstreams and emails (bad enough), but also use these machines as AV bugs is purely horrifying.

Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious.

But when schools take that personal information, indiscriminately invading privacy (and, of course, punishing students who use proxies and other privacy tools to avoid official surveillance), they send a much more powerful message: your privacy is worthless and you shouldn't try to protect it.

Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (PDF) (Thanks, Roland!)

1984 is not an instruction manual!

[Mr Bean]

Yeah.. I mean... wow.... If true get the Vice Principal and every person who planned this out of education as fast as possible.
Nevermind the possible Voyeur child pron charges if even one of these kids had their laptops set up in their rooms and recordings were made.

[Collossus]

So wonder what this "improper behavior" was..........

Also I wonder what the extent of control was, could they access their desktop and mic? did it have a built in mic? if they had full access to that Laptop. that is even worse.

[Shroom Man 777]

So... can the school call the cops to arrest students in their own homes? Cause that would be awesome.

I find this utterly abhorrent, disgusting and freaky. Jesus. Who on Earth thought that this would be a good idea? What kind of fucked up situation warrants this kind of crap? Is it a public school, or some deranged private school with super-strict crazy program/pogroms? Or was the guilty party doing this just by his/her/their lonesome, and that this was not part of the school's plan at all, but just an act of single/multiple/groups of perverts who happen to occupy ranking school positions?

Man, I guess this is one good thing about America's litigation/sue-happy culture, because the country's full of fucking idiots and stupid psycho people.

[The Spartan]

How the hell is "improper behavior at home" even a punishable offense at school? Leaving aside the privacy issues for a moment, I don't see how the school even has jurisdiction at that point. Assuming the kid was misbehaving it's the parents prerogative to punish the child. Moreover, what if the kid is doing something that the parents don't object to when at home but is disallowed at school?

[Big Phil]

Presumably this was done without the parents' consent (that's what they're alleging, at least). We haven't heard the school's explanation for this yet, but I'd be very curious to see how they justify this.

[The Spartan]

That's kind of my point. You would need parental consent to have that jurisdiction and even then I'm not sure that it's on anything but shaky legal ground. Though I am not, I should hasten to add, a lawyer and have little more than a layman's knowledge of the law.

So, I'll have to wait with you to see what the school pulls out of it's collective ass to explain themselves.

[RedImperator]

Huh. My mom and aunt went to that high school, and so did my cousin, my grandmother worked there, and so do some of my grad school classmates. For all that, I don't know very much about the district or the administration, so I can't say if something smells funny about this. I'm not particularly surprised some administrator would get the bright idea to use webcams to spy on students at home, but I can't say if LMHS has those kinds of administrators.

As for "improper behavior at home", schools have always had some jurisdiction off their property and outside school hours. A fight between two students on a weekend could result in suspensions if it was related to something that happened in school, for example. There have been cases of students punished for things they wrote on their MySpace pages about teachers or other students. If it ties back to the school somehow, schools can and do get involved. However, there's also been a trend towards schools claiming broader and broader jurisdiction over students, including things which have no real impact during school hours.

I'm very interested to hear the school district's response.

[Serafina]

Screw legality - this is morally wrong on so many levels...
What possible reason could there be for the school to care what students do at home?

I mean, regulations for the way to/from school and regarding extreme actions (violence) towards teachers/fellow students outside of that, i can understand that. That can reasonably affect the school.
But i see absolutely no such connection for a students private life. Sure, schools might want to know if someone is, say, dealing with drugs - but if it happens outside the school, that's the polices bussiness.

[Big Phil]

Screw legality - this is morally wrong on so many levels...
What possible reason could there be for the school to care what students do at home?

I mean, regulations for the way to/from school and regarding extreme actions (violence) towards teachers/fellow students outside of that, i can understand that. That can reasonably affect the school.
But i see absolutely no such connection for a students private life. Sure, schools might want to know if someone is, say, dealing with drugs - but if it happens outside the school, that's the polices bussiness.

There are many reasons for schools to care, as RedImperator pointed out. For example, they might care if a student is using school property to commit crimes (computer hacking, identify theft, credit card fraud, etc.); in that situation the school could be faulted if they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent such activity.

That being said, there is a huge chasm between preventing criminal behavior with school property and spying on kids in their bedrooms.

[Liberty]

Screw legality - this is morally wrong on so many levels...
What possible reason could there be for the school to care what students do at home?

I mean, regulations for the way to/from school and regarding extreme actions (violence) towards teachers/fellow students outside of that, i can understand that. That can reasonably affect the school.
But i see absolutely no such connection for a students private life. Sure, schools might want to know if someone is, say, dealing with drugs - but if it happens outside the school, that's the polices bussiness.

I'm with her. This is ridiculous. The idea that if I someday put my children in a public school, that school could have some sort of jurisdiction over what that child does out of school is absolutely frightening.

[Shroom Man 777]

This is something akin to wiretapping and is also an invasion of privacy. I might be unfamiliar with American laws, but I think this is fair grounds for litigation against the school itself. You can't justify electronically spying on someone without his knowledge, in his or her own home. You need police power to do that, some kind of warrant, or something. How can the school punish these kids, when in the law any evidence obtained in that manner can't even be admissible as evidence in the courts? Mangoes.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Wow... Just wow.


One wonders what, exactly, 'improper behavior' the school caught on camera? Masturbation? Homosexual (or even heterosexual) romantic/sexual exlporations? Drawing a swastika on their walls, hitting a sibling or parent?

The PDF in the BoingBoing! link is the filing brief (I think; I am not a lawyer) wherein the plaintiff's attourney files to bring the school district to court. Unfortunately the document doesn't have any further details about what exactly the school claimed was going on.


Regardless, though, even if the school's camera caught on video-tape the fact that the student had shot someone, I'm of the belief that they'd be heaved out of court so fast they'd splatter on the steps by way of improperly gathered evidence. Unfortunately for all concerned, schools very frequently have powers of enforcement up to and including police arrest powers in that they can simple have a student hauled out in handcuffs on their say-so, but have absolutely none of the accountability of or regulations placed upon police.

If you have a locker in Grand Central, for example, and the cops don't like you, they can't just crowbar it open and take you to prison based on finding something illegal within. A school can do that, for example.

This, though... This goes way beyond the pale and into (as OP referrenced,) Orwellian territory. The fact that it's actually giving me ideas for a story I'm writing is actually somewhat terrifying. This goes far beyond claiming the draconian authority of acting in loco parentis during school hours; this is actually attempting to claim that draconian authority in a student's home. It's quite chilling, really. Nobody should be allowed to pull this stunt.

I hope the court nails these motherfuckers to the wall; really drops the heavy end of the hammer on them. Invading the privacy of someone's bedroom and claiming jurisdiction therein is a power that even police don't get without a warrant and probable cause. The idea of a school claiming that authority for themselves is terrifying.

[RedImperator]

I wonder who actually owned the laptops. If they're rented or leased from the school, or just given to students like textbooks (LMHS has that kind of money, so it's not out of the question), their defense will undoubtedly be that they own the machines, so it's within their rights to remotely access them, the same way they have the right to inspect students' lockers without cause or consent. The problem comes with the spying and violation of privacy without consent of the homeowners/parents; I have no idea how they plan to deal with that, in part because I don't know the law on this very well. At this point I would assume the district is in very deep shit and the families who were spied on just hit the jackpot, but I don't know for sure.

And, no, actually, schools do have legitimate concerns about what students do outside the building. If a student is selling drugs to other students, that is absolutely the school's business no matter where the exchange is actually being made. If students are cheating, that's the school's business. If students are using school-supplied laptops to break the law, that's definitely the school's business, as Sanchez said. Without knowing what the student got busted for, there's no way to judge if the school had cause to punish the student for something he did after school. That's a separate issue from the spying.

Just so we're clear, he shouldn't be punished if the school broke the law and violated his privacy to discover what he did. But it's possible that if they'd found out by some other means, they'd be well within their rights to discipline him.

[eion]

I wonder who actually owned the laptops. If they're rented or leased from the school, or just given to students like textbooks (LMHS has that kind of money, so it's not out of the question), their defense will undoubtedly be that they own the machines, so it's within their rights to remotely access them, the same way they have the right to inspect students' lockers without cause or consent. The problem comes with the spying and violation of privacy without consent of the homeowners/parents; I have no idea how they plan to deal with that, in part because I don't know the law on this very well. At this point I would assume the district is in very deep shit and the families who were spied on just hit the jackpot, but I don't know for sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if the students and parents had to sign a contract before the laptops were issued and said contract included some appropriately vague legalese allowing for this unethical and downright creepy act by the school.

I also wouldn't be surprised if it was just yet another over-zealous vice-principal. What is it with vice-principals and being douchebags?

[RedImperator]

There's a certain type of administrator--sadly much too common--who gets a case of the little tin Jesuses as soon as he gets his own office. It's not just vice-principals. That's one of the reasons teachers unionized in the first place; the way school charters are written, administrators have all the power, and too many of them are happy to abuse it.

That said, since VPs are most commonly the administrator in charge of student discipline, most cases of douchebaggery in student discipline will involve a douchebag VP. You're less likely to hear about a principal or department head or guidance director being a jerkoff, even though there's about the same ratio of jerkoffs to non-jerkoffs among all administrators.

[Bilbo]

Why do I only see mention of a Class Action suit? Why no mention of criminal charges and members of the school administration being arrested?

[Uraniun235]

This raises some interesting technical questions for me. How did the school staff connect to these computers while they were in the home? What software did they use? More importantly, is this a feature that was planned or advertised (among the staff), or did the administrators happen to stumble onto the fact that they could also connect to these computers while they were outside of the school network?

Also, do the laptops use a VPN to tunnel back to the school's network in order to get access to school resources (and a filtered internet connection), or were those laptops merely connected to a home internet connection? And did the student use agreement (was there one??) stipulate that district staff could connect to the laptops even while they're outside of the school network, and did said agreement imply permission for district staff to connect to home networks without first obtaining consent?

I sure wouldn't want to be working in that IT department right now. Well, at least, not as someone with any responsibility over the configuration of those laptops.



Also, every kid gets a laptop to take home? Christ, what excess. What is it with the perpetual desire to throw as much shiny shit as possible into the classroom? Is there actual research to indicate that education works better when students are utterly fucking surrounded by electronics?

Why do I only see mention of a Class Action suit? Why no mention of criminal charges and members of the school administration being arrested?

Which charges would those be, precisely? And whom would you arrest? The article mentions that the VP used the photo as evidence, but was it the VP that actually took the photo? Can you prove that he did it, and not, say, someone attached to the district technology department?

[RedImperator]

Why do I only see mention of a Class Action suit? Why no mention of criminal charges and members of the school administration being arrested?

Maybe because the case was filed two days ago? Maybe the Lower Merion Township Police should hire you to tell them who should be arrested and who shouldn't, rather than waste time and money on "investigations".

[Bilbo]

Why do I only see mention of a Class Action suit? Why no mention of criminal charges and members of the school administration being arrested?

Which charges would those be, precisely? And whom would you arrest? The article mentions that the VP used the photo as evidence, but was it the VP that actually took the photo? Can you prove that he did it, and not, say, someone attached to the district technology department?

According to this article with further information a whole host of charges. I would start by arresting the VP. He was in possession of said picture, and obviously knew exactly where it came from.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20100 ... d=84722562

[Bilbo]

Why do I only see mention of a Class Action suit? Why no mention of criminal charges and members of the school administration being arrested?

Maybe because the case was filed two days ago? Maybe the Lower Merion Township Police should hire you to tell them who should be arrested and who shouldn't, rather than waste time and money on "investigations".

What part of CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT suggests any police involvement. Sounds like no law enforcement involvement at all. This happened last November, since then things must have happened before the Class Action lawsuit was filed by the parents. I want to know why the local District Attorney has done nothing.

Or maybe its just an incredibly lazy reporter that didnt bother to get the whole story. That is possible too.

[The Spartan]

And, no, actually, schools do have legitimate concerns about what students do outside the building. If a student is selling drugs to other students, that is absolutely the school's business no matter where the exchange is actually being made. If students are cheating, that's the school's business. If students are using school-supplied laptops to break the law, that's definitely the school's business, as Sanchez said. Without knowing what the student got busted for, there's no way to judge if the school had cause to punish the student for something he did after school. That's a separate issue from the spying.

Just to clarify, I don't have a problem with the school being able to punish a student for something they did off campus, per se. I had a classmate who was suspended for a year because he was in a fight off campus and when a police officer tried to break it up he spun around without looking first, so to speak, and slugged the officer. Then there's your example of cheating or dealing drugs, especially if they're using the laptops to facilitate either.

That said, improper behavior is such broad description that I'm immediately suspicious. Yes, it would be nice if we had more information at this point, but when I hear that sort of phrase my reaction is to start wondering just whether the school really has any business punishing them for it.

And, again, that leaves aside any issues that may result from privacy invasion.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I wonder who actually owned the laptops. If they're rented or leased from the school, or just given to students like textbooks (LMHS has that kind of money, so it's not out of the question), their defense will undoubtedly be that they own the machines, so it's within their rights to remotely access them, the same way they have the right to inspect students' lockers without cause or consent. The problem comes with the spying and violation of privacy without consent of the homeowners/parents; I have no idea how they plan to deal with that, in part because I don't know the law on this very well. At this point I would assume the district is in very deep shit and the families who were spied on just hit the jackpot, but I don't know for sure.

I don't think, as a defense, "we own the machine" would fly very far. At the most it seems to me as if that would let them monitor net traffic, but once you get into visual spying on kids in their bedrooms, that starts to turn into illegal surveilance very quickly. Especially if they caught an image of some poor girl or boy in the nude... Actually, I think it would be best for all concerned (save, obviously, the poor unfortunate(s) caught in the buff) if they did; hammer the school with child porn charges and the school will suddenly be about as radioactive as Chernobyl. Anyone who would dare speak in their defense would be pro-child-porn. You'd see heads roll left, right, and center as anyone with any degree of culpability in the matter throws everyone below them under the bus to try and save themselves, effectively probably resulting in the dissoloution of the school board responsible and emergency elections held for new officials (or, dare I even hope, appointed officials chosen for their ability to get the job done right.)

And, no, actually, schools do have legitimate concerns about what students do outside the building. If a student is selling drugs to other students, that is absolutely the school's business no matter where the exchange is actually being made.

If it's happening outside of the school grounds, outside of the school's hours, that's a matter for law enforcement. If the school comes into possession of such information, they should promptly hand it over to the police, not attempt some half-assed enforcement of their own.

If students are cheating, that's the school's business. If students are using school-supplied laptops to break the law, that's definitely the school's business, as Sanchez said.

This much is true. The first is academic dishonesty, and the second is a legal liability; again, see "should hand over the details to the police, not attempt some half-assed enforcement of their own."

Without knowing what the student got busted for, there's no way to judge if the school had cause to punish the student for something he did after school. That's a separate issue from the spying.

Just so we're clear, he shouldn't be punished if the school broke the law and violated his privacy to discover what he did. But it's possible that if they'd found out by some other means, they'd be well within their rights to discipline him.

The old 'Inevitable discovery' argument - the fact that an officer snuck into your shed and discovered a body can be put into play even though the officer has been disciplined for illegal search, because the prosecution argues that the corpse would have stank and eventually been discovered.

Unfortunately it doesn't matter one whit. Schools are not held to any evidence-gathering standards. A lawyer won't help you with a school - they draconically decide what they will do to you, and you have no remedy of appeal save, possibly, to a higher authority of the school itself, which ninety-nine times for a hundred will side with the lower school simply out of solidarity.

If anything's going to prevent this kid's punishment, it's going to be the school trying to hush up everything and get the case called off. Most likely that if the plaintiffs pursue, the school will make the kid's life a living hell in retaliation. Hopefully his parents will have the good sense (and importantly, means,) to pull him from their school and place him elsewhere.

I wouldn't be surprised if the students and parents had to sign a contract before the laptops were issued and said contract included some appropriately vague legalese allowing for this unethical and downright creepy act by the school.

There's no doubt in my mind about that. Still, there's a good chance that won't fly; even Antonin fucking Scalia votes against the authority in cases of illegal evidence-gathering methods. I would be very surprised if any court didn't hammer the school district in question, vauge legalese be damned.

I also wouldn't be surprised if it was just yet another over-zealous vice-principal. What is it with vice-principals and being douchebags?

They're basically frustrated middle-management. They have all the responsibilities of the principal - discipling students, managing the school - half the pay and none of the prestige; and if any pooches get screwed, guess who the principal will be throwing under the bus to save his own hide? Combine that with nigh-unlimited authority over a vast caste of people who literally have no recourse (save violence) if the vice principal decides to take his frustrations out on them, and you get a freaking road-map to power-tripping authority abuse.

[eion]

Also, every kid gets a laptop to take home? Christ, what excess. What is it with the perpetual desire to throw as much shiny shit as possible into the classroom? Is there actual research to indicate that education works better when students are utterly fucking surrounded by electronics?

It looks like opinion is still quite divided, and no one is sure how much of it is that schools who can afford laptop programs are already better off than schools that can't. But after a little googling, here are some articles that reference some nebulous studies and metrics:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... scores.ars
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/te ... 17/19/2184
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/i ... est_scores
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Students- ... After/4576
http://www.mcmel.org/MLLS/mlti/Learning ... _sum05.pdf

One interesting thing that has come out is that while laptops in classrooms don't seem to have much effect on test scores, allowing the students to take them home does seem to improve test scores.

If my child could take his textbook home and your child were not allowed to take it
home, whose child would have the advantage and whose child would be
disadvantaged?

If all your papers must be typed, it does put a crimp on your productivity if you don't have a computer at home.

[Azazal]

Playing devil's advocate here.

Sounds like the laptops are owned by the school,as such a I'm sure that there as usage agreement that the student had to sign, but as we can see the article is a bit too vague on those details.

I'm wondering if the kid was using the web cam on the system at home to do who know what; homemade porn, pics of them doing crack, youtube video of them spanking a monkey? hell we don't know. But, what if the system is sent to sync up with a central system went brought back to the school? The school might have been given a notice from the system after the fact, and they were not actively ease dropping on the kid in real time.

What also raises a red flag to me is

Instead, they ensured they got 24/7 access to students' private lives by secretly installing webcams they remotely control to spy on teens and their families at home, according to a federal, class-action lawsuit filed this week in Philadelphia.

The district installed these secret web cams? really? What make an model laptop? I curious as to why they would install secretly install a web cam when just about every laptop has one built in these days. Plus I would be pretty impresses if a school district IT dept could install and hide a web cam on a laptop, and have it so well hidden that no one noticed.

However, we need more info from all parties before we can judge what happened.