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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"?
The school denies Misuse, however they have photographic evidence of a child committing inappropriate behavior in the child's bedroom.
Therefore the School has already committed a misuse of said camera's. The real question is why hasn't the school fired the people involved. there was no evidence of any laptops being stolen therefore the system shouldn't have been turned on to begin with. The only reason the camera's were turned on would be for misuse.
So the school district is lying to cover themselves. They could get out of this much easier if they simply fired a couple of people and blamed those directly responsible, and their bosses for the policy.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Webcams hardly equal a lojack. Seems to me, this whole incident is nothing more than the reflection of our society's values of surveilance absent privacy, all in the name of security of course. As is said on The Simpsons, "Won't someone think of the children?!?"
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If cartoons are CP, then fuzzy grey images out real kids are definitely CP.
Double standards suck. We need consistency.
You're right. It's he-said, she-said. But since the school district does have controls in place to protect against abuses (only two people have access to the function, and this access is logged), and because I'd be very, very surprised if the district was foolish enough to act in the way that the suit alleges, I'm siding firmly on the side of "someone needs to provide some proof before I condemn anyone" - something the sensationalist media seems to be trying very hard doesn't happen.
Now this may be what it was intended for, but it seems that someone didn't get the memo - or so the plaintiffs allege. ...why does the school say it won't start using the snooping feature again without "express written notification to all students and families"? I don't think it indicates anything at all that the district will more clearly communicate the existence and usage patterns of the software before they activate it again. The district has successfully used the software to recover 18 of 42 lost laptops, so if anything it seems like they might need even stronger software than this (though this is still $18,000 worth of taxpayer money the software has saved). Parents and students were surprised to know of its existence, and the district feels in retrospect that whatever communication was made in this regard was insufficient. That sounds like a reasonable action to me.
I still find it far more plausible that the student took a photo himself and sent it to his buddies, than that one of two people with access to the system abused it, then exposed their abuse to a principal (who is not one of the two with access), who decided instead of doing something about the abuse, to then further abuse it themselves, and expose the abuse to the student and the student's parents. Sorry, one kid being kinda stupid is far more likely than two adults being very stupid.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Because for some strange reason Americans are squeamish about everything sexual, and as a result have the highest rates of STDs in the G-7.....
I can also see the case for that being proof of the opposite...
The news reports say that the cameras were activated in this case plus 42 other cases. If the school is telling the truth they should have documentary evidence of claims of theft or loss for all 43 cases.
If they can document all 43 cases, they're still in hot water. If they can't then they're caught in yet another lie.
I'm so sorry but we need to treat you and your cohorts just like we treat everyone else who is alleged, on television, of being guilty of a crime which means we will convict you, throw you in jail and make sure the other inmates know what you did...
It's only fair, so be sure to enjoy your daily beatings and o, the rapes.
A few days ago, most of us were still waiting to see if this story was in fact exaggerated and/or untrue: what about the school's side of the story?
But it appears that the initial impressions were correct: the school is in fact just scrabbling around for excuses ("It was a security feature, promise!"). This suggests that there was in fact no good reason or alternate story.
Which is good, because I can go and get properly angry now.
maybe while the feature was introduced for all the right reasons (recovering lost/stolen laptops), they're admitting that students/parents should've been notified? i.e. they're admitting they made a mistake, but denying that they are pedophiles who used this "feature" to spy on acne-faced teenage boys masturbating to vogue magazine.
Now that's just ridiculous! I highly doubt teenage boys are masturbating to vogue magazine. Especially with the school-issued laptop computer (i.e. gateway to the universe of porn) right in front of them.
Yup. The irony here of course is that by creating this kerfuffle, they've completely eliminated any actual security the webcam system might have given them. Now everybody knows that these laptops have hidden cameras, so they'll just tape over them. So there's little chance that the cameras will ever actually be used to identify any thief now.
and why were they watching in the first place?
Trolling for cheerleaders changing clothes, obviously.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I don't know that I would hope that any damages are awarded in the case, it simply costs their friends and neighbours who are tax payers for the board, rather than the individuals responsible for the abuse (of power).
Yep, I would much rather see everyone involved - especially the decision makers - convicted of some sort of pedophile related sex crime. That will effectively take them out of circulation and will prevent them from ever again being a position of authority where they can exercise their stupidity on others. If zero tolerance on drugs is good enough for the kids then society's zero tolerance on anything that can be remotely confused for pedophilia is good enough for the administrators.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The scary part is in the summary: the people in charge believe they have done no wrong and are doing what's best. It's like a sociopath who thinks the ends justify the means and never believes his or her actions are wrong or could hurt anyone. These are the most dangerous people that free societies must be vigilant against.
I hope the student ends up able to retire on the punitive damages he gets
OK, I'm risking being burnt at the stake her but what the heck.
I speak for Europe and possibly for a whole lot of other countries outside of northern America. Over here we try and put stuff into perspective and not to overreact. I agree that the student in question's privacy was harmed. In fact that's the main point here. So, with respect to damages, all pupils that were spied upon are entitled to some. The fact that the surveillance officer made a judgment error can happen and should be forgivable or constitute a minor punishment.
But why should the student be able to retire on the punitive damages he gets? Sure, the whole situation stinks but an apology and maybe a box of candy should suffice as punitive damages. You seem to covet a juridical system where you're extremely happy someone make a minor error. Already with minor arguments the winner thrives and the looser parishes.
I'm not saying we all should become tree hugging hippies but I sure advocate right perspective, common sense and less fear of doing something wrong.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
The other question is: What the fuck business is it of the school's what they are doing outside of school anyway? If the school officials think their authority is so broad, they should not even be allowed around children.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Even if he was toking the reefer while getting getting blown by two thirteen year-old girls, it is none of their fucking business. This would be like a cop barging into your place, having a peak, and saying "Okay. Nothing illegal going on. Have a nice day."
Similar to the upcoming US election results
No, odds are good that taping over the hidden cameras will be a punishable offense. Perhaps it can be conspiracy to engage in theft, considering their given lame excuse for the camera.
Odds are good, only idiot thieves would have been caught anyways...and they would have likely been caught anyways. Ie, idiot thieves would neither (a) wipe the HD (and the spying software) nor (b) boot from a clean medium to investigate the laptop's data (and hence not run/load the spying software). Of course, if you're not wiping the HD, you're likely to be caught at some point with significant evidence that the laptop you sold/are using is stolen. And if you're simply running the built-in software, odds are good that you'll visit some website, be auto-logged in, and in your snooping into the persons account be pretty traceable by your IP address.
Now, if they had some sort of hardware GPS device that could be remotely activated and give the GPS unit's location, that'd be a whole other story. Of course, a thief could still potentially rip out the GPS device (presuming it's not well integrated into the motherboard), but it'd be a lot less obvious that a school would pay for the expense of an always-available GPS and would be a much better deterrent to *announce* the damn device. No, the odds are good that school officials presumed they owned the laptop and could remotely access the webcam whenever they pleased.
That they would later try to justify it with some school-wide policy or point out specific misdeeds to justify it really doesn't cover the obvious issues that (a) a thief could likely be another minor student and (b) you could catch said thief in a sexual act (age of consent is 16 in Pennsylvania). In short, the simple fact that the produced images from a hidden camera are such a hot bed for possibly criminal action (I mean, what part of "hidden camera" and "school" sounds like a good idea?) really shows a severe lack of forethought at minimum and at worst a casual massive overextension of authority. I mean, what sort of legal predicament would an actual full-time, legal guardian be in for placing a hidden camera in their 16 year old child's bedroom?
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Any possible excuses the school district can claim go up in smoke with the simple fact that they collected a still image on a laptop that was not reported as stolen. They basically took a picture with their own hand in the cookie jar. Unless they can prove that a claim was filed on the laptop in question, they are fucked, not to put too fine a point on it.
The whole idea of enabling a remote cam capability on a laptop in use by a child is disgusting on it's face. I don't care what 'benefits' they claim it produces. They could just as easily collect IP info, find the provider who owns those IP's, and track it down via that route.
The idiot that thought this was a 'great security feature' needs a little 'special time' in a local penitentiary along with any complicit school board members.
Unfortunately, some people seem to think that lack of training about the issues around sex will discourage kids from participation in sex that has been the norm since long before we understood enough to talk about (or, for that matter, even had language to talk about it). It's a process that only works for people who confuse belief and hope with reality.
I think that this explains why some of these same people confuse things like fantasy gaming with real devil worship. ..... and it explains why states that have the most restrictions about sex education also tend to have the most STDs and teen pregnancies.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
When I was in highschool, I had considered doing something a bit more insideous, and thankfully I never did it:
Fill a bunch of fishing weight bags (conveniently the correct size for a hit of cocaine) with powdered sugar, and leave a trail of them going into the assistant principle's office, then chop up some lines of the stuff on one of those magnetic locker mirrors on his desk.
Our Assistant principal was continually roaming the halls looking for even the most minor of infractions (like people holding hands-- Oh my! They are practically having sex in the hallway! Gotta put a stop to that!-- yeah. That kind of thing.) to write a detention slip over, so doing this while he was distracted elsewhere would have been quite easy to do.
This was before the era of continual camera surveillance in the hallways, so it would have been very easy to accomplish.
I must admit though, a part of me REALLY wishes I had done it...
And furthermore, WTF is their problem with masturbation?
What are you talking about?
The kid wasn't choking kojak - he was eating candy. Dumbass on the other side of the camera thought a piece of Mike & Ike candy was an illegal drug. Who knows what kind 'zero-tolerance' befuddled mindset lets them decide that something that looks like a pill was "illegal" via just a webcam shot...
Which brings us back to the original issue - if the "security system" is only used in the case of theft,
The whole thing stinks, IMO.
Why? Because if some administrator does not have "... his poor judgment cost the district millions..." in his performance review, others will be inclined to do the same, and worse.
How, exactly, does one get one's privacy back - once it has been violated?
Imagine, for a moment, if naked images of you (or your daughter) showed up on the internet? Sure, you could sue the school, but she (or you) will have to deal with it for the rest of your life. Did you know there's a statutory limit on the amount of money for which a school district can be liable? It's something like $150k - far less than the worth of someone's dignity.
Imagine the emotional consequence faced by your daughter, if every time she got into an argument someone posted naked pictures of her as revenge. Imagine if the entire school called her dirty names because of it.
And what does she get in return? Enough to pay for college, at maximum. Nevermind the fact that she might never marry, or might have self-esteem issues for the rest of her life. By law, her body is only worth $150k, or about a year of MBA salary.
Sometimes, the consequences of an action are so severe that the punishment must act as a deterrent to others. There is real, permanent harm in invading someone's privacy, especially when the law limits the liability of the infringer. Sure, watching someone eat candy is relatively innocuous. However, it is only a matter of chance that the interlopers didn't watch students undressing, or in other embarrassing situations. And who knows - maybe they did and are hoping investigators don't find out.
We don't have laws against speeding because speeders always cause accidents. Rather, we realize that excessive speed contributes to accidents, and increases the damage when accidents occur. Likewise, if we treat this incident as a mere lapse of judgment, we open the door to further abuses. Worse, because of the legislative limit on damages, it is entirely possible that the harm can never be undone or restituted.
Incidentally, a recent study (2005?) found that public school employees are 7 (seven) times more likely to sexually abuse children than clergy. The reason why these incidents don't often make the press is because the judgments are limited in many states to $150k, rather than the millions that the church had to pay out. It kind of makes me sick that school officials enjoy a legal kind of immunity for which the Church could only hope.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
But why should the student be able to retire on the punitive damages he gets? Sure, the whole situation stinks but an apology and maybe a box of candy should suffice as punitive damages. You seem to covet a juridical system where you're extremely happy someone make a minor error. Already with minor arguments the winner thrives and the looser parishes.
Simple, because the school system's already shown a serious, possibly criminal (the FBI's investigating, also the state's Attorney General), lack of judgment in this case. If they're able to get off with just a small slap on the wrist, they will not learn a damn thing, and it won't be long before they "forget" what happened and do something equally hair-brained that violates more student's civil rights. It may just be an American thing (although I doubt it, stupidity knows now boundaries), but these type of people won't change their ways unless they're punished severely, and the only real method the court has do to that is to impose punitive fines. That those fines go to the plaintiff is justifiable because the plaintiff took the initiative, and risk, to go to court to try and get the school system to stop their illegal behavior.
So it's not that we think this kid deserves such a huge reward necessarily, it's that we know the school system has to get nailed HARD for any real change to take place.
On a related note, I doubt any of us are holding out any real hope that criminal charges will be brought against anyone for this. Or at the very least, even if there are some charges brought, it won't be against the real culprits like the school board members, the administration, etc. It'll be against some scapegoat the school system decides to pin the crimes on and throw under the bus. So only a high punitive damage award will change the system, and it sounds like it needs serious, serious change.