CCTV In School Toilets

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Posted by samzenpus on Friday March 12, 2010 @04:27AM from the peek-a-boo dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Students at Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood, UK, have returned from half-term break to find staff had installed cameras in bathrooms without notifying them or their parents. Some parents are furious at what they say is a 'total invasion of privacy' and claim some pupils are so anxious about being watched they are refusing to use the facilities."

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pics? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 05:42 · Score: 1, Insightful

Pics or it didn't happen.
1. Re:pics? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 22:48 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  As soon as this story broke I started sending my resume to British high schools. I'll post the pics on Flickr as soon as I get a job monitoring the toilet camera's.
  I so far haven't found any advertisements for this particular position yet, though monitoring bathroom facilities is highly labor-intensive, I'm sure there are bound to be plenty of employment opportunities.
  I can imagine the job ads would look something like this:
  
  Looking for highly attentive individuals with good eyesight to monitor cameras placed in the toilet facilities in the local high school. Good writing skills are required because hourly logs of observed activity must be maintained. Job also requires a good memory so that names can easily be matched with faces for identification purposes. The ability and willingness to escalate observances of children inappropriately touching themselves during (after, before, or in the absence of) defecation is mandatory. All anti-social activities observed in the bathroom must be noted and placed in the students permanent record.
  I'll keep on applying until I get this job. Persistence is a virtue. Wish me luck!
2. Re:pics? by cheezegeezer · 2010-03-13 20:49 · Score: 1
  
  Well knowing what the little darlings(toe rags) are like in that area i live not too many miles away and had to visit the area many times when working then i am surprised they aint got them forming a line and signing in and out with an inspection between pupils we are talking one of the biggest areas for out and out thuggery after all
  
  --
  What the F*** is Kharma i do got teeth i don't got no kharma
Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by ElectricTurtle · 2010-03-12 05:42 · Score: 1

... of the slippery slope, somebody excavates another hundred feet and oils it up. 'Oh but they'll never go that far!' Uh-huh. How long before somebody sells this footage for a tidy sum to a fetish website?

--
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
1. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 06:34 · Score: 0
  
  My guess is less than an hour after the cameras are turned on.
2. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Totenglocke · 2010-03-12 06:58 · Score: 1
  
  Or they start putting cameras in each stall because "kids could be doing drugs in the stalls". The most amusing part is that when the UK regularly does shit like this to take away their citizens rights, they then criticize when the US does something 1/10 as bad.
  
  --
  "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
3. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Urkki · 2010-03-13 06:58 · Score: 1
  
  Bottom of the slippery slope? Funny :-).
  Besides, the bottom part of the slope isn't even slippery... It's covered with sharp stones and poison ivy, it's just steep enough and there's already enough momentum, that those won't provide much of a slowdown, they just hurt more.
4. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 14:24 · Score: 0
  
  In their defense, I'm a high school student and I snort a lotta coke in the stalls at my school. Not an _entirely_ invalid justification. Of course, it's still outrageous and completely inappropriate.
5. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-14 05:02 · Score: 0
  
  Uh-huh. How long before somebody sells this footage for a tidy sum to a fetish website?
  Coming soon (and often)
  Two Girls, One Stall!
6. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Rogerborg · 2010-03-14 09:57 · Score: 1
  
  And when did "the UK" (whatever you mean by that) criticise the US - and presumably you mean only the US, and not the UK as well - for doing something "1/10 as bad" as spying on children taking a leak?
  Your assertion, your burden of proof.
  
  --
  If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
7. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Nutria · 2010-03-14 19:44 · Score: 1
  Google The Independent and The Guardian for any variation of
  
  human rights organizations,
  criticize,
  Bush,
  US,
  American,
  
  Britain, and
  
  Europe.
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
8. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by JustOK · 2010-03-14 21:09 · Score: 1
  
  it's been done. no xkcd link needed.
  
  --
  rewriting history since 2109
9. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Rogerborg · 2010-03-14 22:17 · Score: 1
  
  How about you find the evidence that backs up your assertion, poppet?
  
  --
  If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
10. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by TheThiefMaster · 2010-03-15 01:34 · Score: 1
  
  Strangely enough, I've never seen the UK do anything this bad.
11. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by TheThiefMaster · 2010-03-15 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  Except in the media, obviously.
12. Re:Just when you thought you were at the bottom... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-15 06:58 · Score: 0
  
  He told you how to get it. Do you need to be spoon fed, poppet?
Easily dealt with by Locke2005 · 2010-03-12 07:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

1. Get naked in front of the camera under pretense of changing ones clothes.
2. Have a lawyer supoena the tapes for that time as part of an invasion of privacy lawsuit.
3. Have any school employee associated with this scheme arrested for possession child pornography.
Really, what kind of images did they think they were going to get with this system?

--
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
1. Re:Easily dealt with by bsDaemon · 2010-03-14 01:28 · Score: 1
  
  well, they're probably not set to view the stalls in particular, and the school likely thought they'd catch kids smoking or whatever in the "common" part of the bathroom. not that its an excuse.
2. Re:Easily dealt with by Nutria · 2010-03-14 19:48 · Score: 1
  
  Irrelevant. Both boys and girls occasionally (fully or partially) strip in the open area near the sinks.
  The most common innocent reason is stained (food, ink, dirt, blood, etc) clothing, and the common "rebellious" reason is to wear what the parents don't approve of.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
3. Re:Easily dealt with by clone53421 · 2010-03-15 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  Would it even work like that in the UK?
  
  --
  Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Truly disturbing by sjames · 2010-03-12 08:08 · Score: 1

It's hard to imagine a responsable adult that would think that's a good idea, even without a pedophile scare in progress.
I suppose next they'll just save some class time and install a couple toilets in the back of the classrooms.
1. Re:Truly disturbing by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 12:11 · Score: 0
  
  I'm betting a pedophile came up with and another one approved this idea.
Easy remedy by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 16:51 · Score: 1, Funny

Just start using the hallways instead. They'll get rid of those cameras real quick.
Hmmm.... now where are these cameras? by OrwellianLurker · 2010-03-12 19:21 · Score: 1

Time for some kids to mask up and vandalize these cameras... Their parents and other adults should be following the legal routes to remove the cameras, but if those are proven unsuccessful these cameras are probably easy enough to disable.

--
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
They will get used to it by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 22:15 · Score: 0

...some pupils are so anxious about being watched they are refusing to use the facilities.
They will get used to the cameras in their toilets, just like they got used to the cameras outside. This is only news until it gets old. Move right along...
I See London, I See France by BraksDad · 2010-03-13 03:43 · Score: 1

Oops, now I see their sewewrs. I C U in the Loo.

--
Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
Supervision by matria · 2010-03-13 04:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

When I was in grade school, I went to a small four-room schoolhouse with two bathrooms at the end of the hall. The seven adults at the school also used the same bathrooms. All was quiet. Then they added an extension, with a teacher's lounge and bathroom. Immediately there were serious problems with smoking, drugs and sexual harassment and even a couple of cases of rape in those same two bathrooms at the end of the hall. After I caught two girls and a boy spying on me in the stall (the girls started giggling when the boy looked), I ended up with a severe kidney infection from refusing to use the bathroom at school.
1. Re:Supervision by DarkKnightRadick · 2010-03-13 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, but you cannot copy the video in your head onto a computer and sell it online. Pure and simple these cameras are an invasion of privacy
  In the grade school(s) I went to (no one could or wanted to deal with me and ADHD or the fact I was picked on mercilessly), the most anyone had to worry about in the bathroom was someone stinking it up (and I went to some extremely rough schools).
  
  --
  "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
2. Re:Supervision by matria · 2010-03-13 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  What I was suggesting was that maybe separating the adults from the children the way it is done is not a good idea. With teachers eating in the same lunchroom and using the same bathrooms, there would be a much different atmosphere. As it is, the only teachers the kids interact with outside of the classroom are those assigned to "monitor", and all they can think about is when their assignment of trying to keep the little monsters from killing each other is over and they can go back to their friends, coffee and cigarettes in the teacher's lounge. Teachers are no longer friends and role models; they have become little more than school policemen with no real authority.
3. Re:Supervision by DarkKnightRadick · 2010-03-13 09:55 · Score: 1
  
  While I agree that the authority of teachers have been stripped away, I'm not sure that such supervision as you suggest will work, especially with the sort of teachers I've had (I was picked on in class with the teachers blessing at one school).
  No, in this case (and in the scenario you presented which I take to be true on your word alone) I think better parenting is in order here. In the end, bullies either learn it from their parents, are not disciplined by their parents, or (aside from learning it from them) are encouraged to be such by their parents.
  Better kids begin at home.
  Should teachers be allowed (or forced) to better supervise the children? Perhaps, but that's like putting band-aids on the wounds of a leper. It works for a short time only. Sure, you can keep reapplying it, but eventually you're going to have to cure the disease or cut out the source of infection.
  
  --
  "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
4. Re:Supervision by Dunbal · 2010-03-14 01:19 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  I ended up with a severe kidney infection from refusing to use the bathroom at school.
  Liar.
  
  --
  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
5. Re:Supervision by clone53421 · 2010-03-15 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  Having teachers use the same bathrooms as the students?
  Oh hell no, can you even begin to imagine the sexual harassment lawsuits it would invite? Teachers can’t even give hugs or let students sit on their lap. Having them in the same bathroom where the kids are taking their clothes off? You’re insane.
  You’re not insane. You’re just from a different era. Times have changed.
  
  --
  Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.