Yesterday I reported how a school in the Lower Merion High School district in Pennsylvania was using web cams on laptops to spy on some of their students. Well, an FBI official spoke to The Associated Press confirmed that they will be opening up this case and giving it a full criminal investigation.
Students who were given the laptops in the school district were given computers that had their web cams remotely activated whenever the schools administrators thought it was time to do so, and apparently this type of event has been going on for the past 14 months but wasn’t really brought to light until a student, Blake Robbins, was punished in school for “improper behavior in his home.” Normally this would be something that might be pushed aside as just an overly strict school, but because the Vice Principal provided a photo of the matter as evidence, he pretty much dug his own grave.
According to Boing Boing, a class action law suit has been filed against the school on behalf of all students issued the laptops.
The school is fighting back with this response to the reports stating that “the security feature was installed to help locate a laptop in the event it was report lost, missing or stolen so that the laptop could be returned to the student.” They claim that they have never once used it to spy on students, and frankly I don’t believe that because why would it have been activated unless it was reported missing? Just for fun? Apparently the web cams have been activated 42 times to find missing laptops in the past 14 months.
To wrap things up, Dr. Christopher McGinley, Superintendent at the Lower Merion School District also said the school was sorry for its actions. “We regret if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families,” he said.
I don’t think saying sorry will cover up this one, Doctor. You are definitely no Tiger Woods.
