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Lower Merion School's Report Says IT Dept. Did It, But Didn't Inhale

Posted by timothy on from the so-what's-a-few-snapshots-anyhow dept.

PSandusky writes "A report issued by the Lower Merion School District's chosen law firm blames the district's IT department for the laptop webcam spying scandal. In particular, the report mentions lax IT policies and record-keeping as major problems that enabled the spying. Despite thousands of e-mails and images to the contrary, the report also maintains that no proof exists that anyone in IT viewed images captured by the webcams."

11 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Wow... by Em+Emalb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I sure hope those "IT Dept" folks have emails archived indicating the request to do this.

    Otherwise...wow. I feel bad for them.

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    1. Re:Wow... by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I sure hope those "IT Dept" folks have emails archived indicating the request to do this.

      Otherwise...wow. I feel bad for them.

      I don't feel bad for them at all. It is so clearly obvious to anyone with minimal common sense that this whole thing could go wrong in a variety of ways. If they didn't think there was anything wrong with what they were doing then they get what they deserve. If they didn't keep a paper trail to cover there asses then they've put themselves in a really bad position. Either way they should have seen some of this coming from day one.

    2. Re:Wow... by eln · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unless the IT department personnel have copies of email threads which include them vehemently opposing this policy, I have little sympathy for them. This sort of spying is highly unethical, and an IT department should, ideally, refuse to honor the request. Realistically, I can see people who depend on that job doing it, but I would expect them to do whatever they could to dissuade the school district from doing it first, and maybe anonymously whistleblowing to the local newspaper second. If all they can show is that they were "just following orders", that's not enough to absolve them.

    3. Re:Wow... by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Didn't the principal suspend a kid for supposedly taking "drugs" at home, that turned out to be Mike N' Ikes?

      The principal was at the very least aware of images taken of students in their homes and had no problems with them at the time the suspension was issued.

      I don't claim to know the facts of the matter, but it sure looks like lies compounding on lies. I really hope the people in charge get nailed for this. If I was a parent with a student at that school, I'd be filing a lawsuit.

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    4. Re:Wow... by Jeng · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How often does IT get to make moral decisions?

      School Administration "Hey, activate the anti-theft program on XXXXX due to non-payment."

      School IT "I'm sorry, I don't believe I'll do that because I don't trust your decision making abilities."

      School Administration "Bye Bye"

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    5. Re:Wow... by poetmatt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      it's kinda hard to say a kid might have done drugs and then later state you couldn't have possibly looked at the photos. It's contradictory for the defense. I'm guessing that Lower Marion doesn't want to accept that they are totally screwed.

    6. Re:Wow... by kenj0418 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      At some places, you do your job and keep your mouth shut, or find somewhere else to work.

      If "do your job" involves surreptitiously photographing under-18 kids without their or their parents knowledge, then "find somewhere else to work" is the correct option.

    7. Re:Wow... by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Didn't the principal suspend a kid for supposedly taking "drugs" at home, that turned out to be Mike N' Ikes?

      It dosen't matter even if the student was smoking a joint or snorting a line of coke. It's still none of the school's damn business what students do outside of school, unless it was a school-sponsored function or they were scooped up by the cops or campus security for being truant, period.

      ...And the mods always string me up by my balls for saying this: Students don't need cell phones and laptops at high school. The computer labs and libraries are more than good enough.

  2. ...Seriously? by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ok, really "Lax IT policies" and "record keeping"? How is that even an excuse? Yeah, if perhaps like 30 pictures were taken it could be blamed on that. But seriously? 58,000 pictures? There is more than lax IT policies. Yeah, perhaps someone might do it once to get a laugh, but no (sane) person is going to do it 58,000 times.

    How hard is it not to activate software unless the laptop has been stolen? It it isn't like its too hard to determine if it has been stolen or not...

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  3. So how did they see the kid eating candy? by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really how did they see the kid eating Mike and Ike's candy?
    And isn't a crime to spy even if you don't look at the data?

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  4. It doesn't even make sense by Posting=!Working · · Score: 4, Insightful

    An assistant principal looked at images of a student in their home and punished the student for what they saw.

    I'll buy their excuse once the can explain how the I.T. department did the above. Explain how the assistant principal didn't know of the capability while punishing the student for a picture taken in the students home using this very capability.

    The capability was known and the invasion of privacy was just fine with the administration until the moment they got sued. If it weren't, the situation causing the lawsuit could never have happened in the first place.

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