PA School Defends Web-Cam Spying As Security Measure, Denies Misuse

tekgoblin writes "The Lower Merion School District of Pennsylvania was recently accused of privacy invasion. Now the school has released an official response to the allegations. According to the school, the security feature was installed in the laptops as an anti-theft device and was not intended to invade privacy. The software that was installed would take a photo of the person using the laptop after it was stolen to give to the authorities. Now this may be what it was intended for, but it seems that someone didn't get the memo." The district's claim that it "has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever" doesn't square with the allegations which set off this whole storm. And if there was nothing wrong with it, why does the school say it won't start using the snooping feature again without "express written notification to all students and families"?

Security

[srussia]

Sure. That's what the body scanners at the airports for as well.

Cheerleader surveillance ....

[golodh]

I have some suggestions for this school on how to best focus its surveillance efforts.

Following the logic of their stated reasons for using the on-board camera to take a peek at student's private lives, I respectfully submit that the individuals which are most at risk are therefore those most in need of the kind of protective surveillance this school offers. Right? Now it is common knowledge that attractive females are, more than most other groups, at risk. Both in school and outside.

It therefore follows, with an elegant inevitability, that surveillance should focus on the 5% most attractive females of the school. We are then talking about continuous surveillance of course.

I recommend enhancing security by also enabling the laptops' microphone. Besides, are those laptop cameras any good for taking infra-red pictures?

Re:In-home Reprimand

[Anonymous Coward]

The kid wasn't choking kojak - he was eating candy.

Ahh, so that's what they call it these days...

Re:In-home Reprimand

[techno-vampire]

The kid wasn't choking kojak - he was eating candy.

Are you sure he wasn't eating Candi? If so, and depending on their ages, they might have been violating some sort of blue-nose law about teenage sex.

Re:Cheerleader surveillance ....

[ae1294]

I recommend enhancing security by also enabling the laptops' microphone. Besides, are those laptop cameras any good for taking infra-red pictures?

My distinguished colleague is right. We must protect our barely illegal females first and foremost. Thus I submit that each laptop must remain on at all times and that said students be required to respond to chat requests from members of this board to insure that they are not being abused or are engaging in illegal activities off camera. If they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. Except us... o and our friends.... and well I guess friends of friends... O and that weird guy, Dave in IT, you know the one who watches those strange cartoons... but anyhow the alternatives are just to horrible to allow happen. We are the last line of deference people...

Re:Who is the software manufacturer?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was created as a joint venture between Microsoft, Apple, Google, IBM, and the FSF.

The school's admins should meet Chatroulette :)

[timothy]

I'd like to see a mashup of the blog I ran into earlier today with pairs of chatroulette web captures, but with the "you" picture in each case being the shocked (simply shocked!) face of some school official from this place.

I'm not suggesting that the students should all sit at home masturbating in leopard costumes and makeup while butt-dialing the school to report that their laptops have been stolen. There are many other fruitful scenarios that I am also not suggesting.

timothy

Re:In-home Reprimand

[Dog-Cow]

If you could, you probably work for the PA Schools.

Re:In-home Reprimand

[sadness203]

But I always do it in the marital bedroom, well, until the husband come home...

Re:I swear we didn't make some delicious CP

[Thing 1]

I've never understood countries that make drawings illegal. So what if a picture shows some boy boffing a girl? There's no victims, therefore no rights violated, therefore no crime.

But, but, won't someone think of the toons?

P-r-r-r-r-r-rease?

Re:In-home Reprimand

[garompeta]

If I were in that school after knowing that they are snooping us, I would deliberately "choke kojak" (blink, blink) in front of the camera, even worse, pointing towards the camera.
Then I would accuse them for secretly setting up a child pornography network.

Yeah, I used to be terrible in school...

Re:In-home Reprimand

[zippthorne]

Do you really want the officially sanctioned price for spying on kids in their bedrooms to be "a box of candy"?

Re:Enough sensationalism already.

[srpape]

In high school, I was suspended from using any of the computers in the school for half a year.

The reason? The librarian saw me type "dir" at a DOS prompt. I was accused of "hacking".

The principal told me I shouldn't be using "dir" because it gets me into "directories".