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

Posted by timothy on from the great-and-powerful-oz's-big-lie-technique dept.

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"?

5 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Security by srussia · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --
    Set your phasers on "funky"!
  2. Cheerleader surveillance .... by golodh · · Score: 5, Funny
    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?

  3. Re:In-home Reprimand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

  4. Re:In-home Reprimand by Dog-Cow · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  5. Re:In-home Reprimand by garompeta · · Score: 5, Funny
    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...