Lower Merion School District officials brag that they give every one of their 1,800 high-schoolers laptop computers to “ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school-based resources.”
Instead, they ensured they got a 24/7 sneak peek into students’ private lives by secretly monitoring webcams embedded in the laptops to spy on teens and their families at home, according to a federal, class-action lawsuit filed this week in Philadelphia.
The suit alleges the remotely controlled covert cameras violate everything from the Fourth Amendment to wiretapping, electronic communications and computer fraud laws.
It was filed Tuesday on behalf of Harriton High student Blake J. Robbins and all Lower Merion students by Robbins’ parents Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley.
Named as defendants are the school district, the district’s nine-member Board of Directors and Superintendent Christopher W. McGinley.
The Robbins seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, as well as an end to the “spying,” according to the 17-page complaint.
The family first learned of the embedded webcams on Nov. 11, when Harriton High’s Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko reprimanded Blake Robbins for “improper behavior in his home,” according to the lawsuit. Matsko cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam on the boy’s school-issued laptop.
The lawsuit does not specify why the photograph was objectionable.
Because the webcam can capture anything happening in the room where the laptop is, district personnel could illicitly observe plenty more than a student’s online activity, the lawsuit alleges.
“Many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress,” the lawsuit charges.
The Robbins’ attorney, Mark Haltzman, couldn’t be reached this morning. McGinley and District Spokesman Doug Young did not immediately return telephone calls for comment today.
Letter from Dr. McGinley to parents/guardians regarding laptop security
Dear LMSD Parents/Guardians,
Our history has been to go to great lengths to protect the privacy of our students, whether it comes to student health, academic or other records. In fact, many of you may remember the heated debate over whether to have security cameras monitor some of our food vending machines. Privacy is a basic right in our society and a matter we take very seriously. We believe that a good job can always be done better.
Recent publicity regarding the District’s one-to-one high school laptop initiative, and questions about the security of student laptops prompted our administration to revisit security procedures.
Laptops are a frequent target for theft in schools and off school property. District laptops do contain a security feature intended to track lost, stolen and missing laptops. The security feature, which was disabled today, was installed to help locate a laptop in the event it was reported lost, missing or stolen so that the laptop could be returned to the student.
Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature would be activated by the District’s security and technology departments. The security feature’s capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
As a result of our preliminary review of security procedures today, I directed the following actions:
•Immediate disabling of the security-tracking program.
•A thorough review of the existing policies for student laptop use.
•A review of security procedures to help safeguard the protection of privacy, including a review of the instances in which the security software was activated. We want to ensure that any affected students and families are made aware of the outcome of laptop recovery investigations.
•A review of any other technology areas in which the intersection of privacy and security may come into play.
We are proud of the fact that we are a leader in providing laptops to every high school student as part of our instructional program. But we need to be equally as proud of the safeguards we have in place to protect the privacy of the users, as well as to safeguard district-owned property while being used by students.
We regret if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families. If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at info@lmsd.org. Additional information has been posted on our website, www.lmsd.org.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Dr. Christopher W. McGinley
Superintendent of Schools
Lower Merion School District
Officials at Lower Merion School District outside Philadelphia have a great deal of explaining to do. And it looks like they’ll do it in court.
A student at the school filed suit after he was called into the assistant principal’s office and reprimanded for “inappropriate behavior while at home.”
How did school officials know what he was doing at home? They secretly installed spyware on student laptops, and snapped a photo of him without his knowledge, according to the student. He found out when they showed him the picture.
School officials are in a defensive crouch now, refusing to answer questions. They say they installed the software only to track missing laptops. But they won’t explain that photo, which indicates that they went considerably further. Parents are understandably furious.
“No government official, whether it’s police or school officials, can enter an individual’s home — whether electronically or personally — without a warrant,” said Vick Volcheck of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s completely beyond me to guess what these officials were thinking.”
Such snooping is not just illegal, it’s downright creepy. Parents have no way of knowing if the cameras captured students and other family members as they undressed or in other highly private situations. Who in the school is monitoring these laptop cameras, and what else have they seen?
Lower Merion prides itself on its technology initiatives, including placing a tracking-security feature on laptops issued to all its 2,300 high school students.
Fine. But any kid who has studied the United States Constitution knows that we all have a right to privacy in our own homes. It’s shocking to think that educators who are supposed to teach them haven’t gotten that message.
Man if I had a kid in that district, and they had been nude in front of that camera it would be all I could do to not go wring someone’s neck.
What sane person would ever think this was a good idea? Aside from the creepiness factor its highly stupid.
I’d say I hope they get sued for millions but then it would just be tax payer dollars paying it. Thus they should face jail time. Everyone who authorized this, and the people monitoring the cameras.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI said today that they would investigate whether the Lower Merion School District activated webcams on the laptop computers that were issued to students.
“We intend to work as a team with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, the Montgomery County Detectives, and the Lower Merion Police Department to determine if any crimes were committed,” U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy said in a statement.
“The issues raised by these allegations are wide-ranging and involve the meeting of the new world of cyberspace with that of physical space. Our focus will only be on whether anyone committed any crimes.”
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court accuses district officials of using a webcam on the school-issued laptop computer of a Harriton High School sophomore to spy on the boy and other students at their homes without warning.
Blake Robbins, 15, was confronted in November by an assistant principal who used a photo from the webcam to accuse the teen of engaging in “improper behavior” at home, says the lawsuit, brought by Robbins’ parents.
The school district contends that the webcam devices were a security feature activated only on laptops that had been reported lost or stolen.
Federal law enforcement agencies typically don’t confirm an investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in the release. The Department of Justice has an exception for matters that have received substantial publicity, or matters in which the department feels the need to reassure the community that law enforcement is investigating the incident, according to the statement.
Levy said that “very few facts are known” about the case and that “we do not intend to comment any further before our investigation is complete.”
I’m an IT geek, and a senior one at a very large organization. I spend almost as much time studying laws and regulations, as I do technology.
We have a legal department with over 100 lawyers, and a risk management department with Vishu knows how many more. I can’t sneak out to the garage for a cigar, without three legal opinions on fire, smoke and ash hazards, respectively.
Where were the geeks in this???
“Oh, you bet, boss. I’ll flip the switch on a potentially illegal system that could potentially send me to jail for child molestation, spying on underage girls…”
Sweet baby Jebus, this thing reeks… Are they really that stupid??
Actually it’s not at all surprising in a public organization. Mid to upper middle level positions are often occupied by people who have no clue about liability issues or the potential privacy/legality/morality issues attached to the use of various bits of technology. Combine a dysfunctional management culture where anyone who doesn’t play ball gets steamrolled because the word “no” is never supposed to be spoken uphill, and the end result is exactly this kind of stupidity.
In my time in public organizations I’ve been told to drop an issue with fire code in a facility because, and I quote, “that’s not our problem.” It’s a facility we run and maintain, but in the opinion of my superiors fire code wasn’t something that should stand in the way of their little plan and me bringing it up was unacceptable because that’s what the facilities people were supposed to deal with.
Inside public organizations sanity checks often don’t happen when somebody with some internal power gets on a snit. It’s a real groupthink atmosphere sometimes and if you’re the guy in the room warning about the iceburg they are steaming for at full speed, you pay the price.
Oh, believe me, I understand exactly how that works. I’ve had bosses that loved to look out at the peasants, and say “Unleash the hounds.” As well as some that were not smart enough to be able pour urine from a boot, with the instructions printed on the heel.
In Braille.
I guess I am fortunate in that I have a good enough skill set to get up from the table and say “Not only no, but hell no” and find another job. I have done exactly that, when ordered to break the law.
I’ve also sat in meetings with enough TLA’s to know that an innocent look and ignorance will not last very long, when they arrive with warrants and bracelets.
Someone shall fry for this. I just hope it’s not the minions. The thing that really, really irritates me the most is that somebody’s tax dollars will likely defend these actions.
The phrase “disgruntled former employee” has a special ring to it in IT circles. It’s usually synonymous with “big fecking check to take care of someone else’s goatscrew.”