The school district, Lower Merion, admitted to capturing thousands of webcam photographs and screen shots from student laptops when the students had them at home. It seems the school had a tracking program that could use the webcam while it was in the teen's room or anywhere else the teen happen to be with their school issued laptop.
A Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, brought a suit against his school in February, 2009 saying that the school was spying on him. His lawyer stated that Blake was photographed 400 times in a two-week period, sometimes as he slept in his bedroom. Yeah, the school over stepped their bounds more than a little here. That is what our community had thought when it happened.
Now, the settlement calls for $175,000 to be placed in a trust for Robbins and $10,000 for a second student who filed suit, Jalil Hassan. Their lawyer, Mark Haltzman, will get $425,000 for his work on the case. Seems fair enough, but I have to wonder if there will be any charges filed against the school or it's staff?
Asking our community of parents: Do you think the settlement is fair? Should there be other charges? Please share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section.
Suggested Reading:
A Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, brought a suit against his school in February, 2009 saying that the school was spying on him. His lawyer stated that Blake was photographed 400 times in a two-week period, sometimes as he slept in his bedroom. Yeah, the school over stepped their bounds more than a little here. That is what our community had thought when it happened.
Now, the settlement calls for $175,000 to be placed in a trust for Robbins and $10,000 for a second student who filed suit, Jalil Hassan. Their lawyer, Mark Haltzman, will get $425,000 for his work on the case. Seems fair enough, but I have to wonder if there will be any charges filed against the school or it's staff?
Asking our community of parents: Do you think the settlement is fair? Should there be other charges? Please share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section.
Suggested Reading:
The school should not even be able to webcam without the student or a parent logging onto the webcam system. If there was a logon system, the parents would know that the student could be watched or monitored. I dont have a problem with the webcam.. well I sort of do.. serious invasion of privacy.. But if you are going to use a school laptop, and it would be elective to use on or not, then the student uses it with the knowledge that they maybe monitored with the webcam.
I am not 100% certain why they needed the webcam and not just monitor with the IP address. I am interested in others opinions!
This is sick, I’m really outraged, as the mother of a teenager myself, that no stronger measures are being taken about it. Nothing can justify that intrusion on a student’s, a family’s life! If you lend a laptop for the single purpose of homework and such, there are ways to prevent other programs from being installed and the free use of the internet. Make a school site available with all the information the teen needs and restrict the internet access to this one place (some sort of intranet). I really think it would be better, in view of the restrictions, that they just build a computer lab at the school building, and make it available for the students, maybe with a time-limit per day.
Honestly, if you’re giving your teen a computer, he will want to use it to do many other things, like surfing the internet, chatting, playing some electronic game, nothing unexpected. If that won’t be allowed, why in heaven’s name are you delivering it with a web cam? What is the use of a web cam when you can only do homework? If the student doesn’t return the laptop, the school knows where he lives, many legal measures could be taken, so that’s no excuse for spying! There’s definitely something fishy here.
You allow the free use of the computer or you don’t! If you don’t, just block the other functions. If you do, leave the students alone, for nothing gives you the right to spy people’s homes. The parents control what happens inside their houses. What’s the purpose of that? Do they want to spy on the teen’s behavior at the internet, what sites and services they use, to sell the information, to have an edge on some kind of profit source or teen manipulation effort? Are they gathering information on specific students, or specific student’s families? And the photographs taken, so many implications on that, I wouldn’t even know where to begin, it’s disgusting! Who are the people handling the acquired information and what are they doing with it? What’s the justification, that’s the least they should be answering the parents from the start, seriously.
I wouldn’t even allow the useless (and potentially harmful) laptop inside my home, but the first thing a family in possession of one of those should be doing is taping, sealing the web cam, so nothing can be seen from it. And no particular information ever being shown on it, since they could also capture everything on the computer screen (and it’s possible that the passwords aren’t safe on it either). I would return the thing and asap and get my money back.