School (allegedly) spies on students
This is creepy. A high school in Pennsylvania gave out laptops to its students and then allegedly spied on them at home by remotely activating the laptops’ webcams. One student’s parents are filing a class-action lawsuit against the school. According to CNN,
“The suit said that on November 11, an assistant principal at Harriton High School told the plaintiffs’ son that he was caught engaging in “improper behavior” in his home and it was captured in an image via the webcam. According to the Robbinses’ complaint, neither they nor their son, Blake, were informed of the school’s ability to access the webcam remotely at any time.”
It’s messed up that the technology would even exist to allow people to do this. There may be legitimate uses for remotely activating webcams (perhaps to find your laptop if you lost it) but computers that an organization gives out to people should not have this feature. No one should be able to unknowingly watch another person through their computer.
And I can’t believe that the assistant principal (allegedly) accused a student of wrongdoing for something he was doing at home! How on Earth is what someone does at home the school’s business?
If the allegations are true, the school officials’ actions amount to a violation of the 4th Amendment, since they essentially looked inside students’ homes without a warrant. According to lawyers from the ACLU and EFF, this might even be a criminal violation of federal wiretapping laws. I certainly hope that the school, if truly guilty, is held fully accountable for these egregious violations of students’ rights.