High school uses notebook webcams to spy on students

Not only did the school violate probably a state law they have violated at least one if not more federal laws concerning wiretapping, eavesdropping, a use of video surveillance without posting signs on the laptop itself and in any room the school has these computers. Whoever installed this feature and anyone who activated it may be on their way to Leavenworth or some other federal prision, if some smart parents file civil rights case or calls the FBI to report illegal wiretapping/surveillance. Remember folks video surveillance is not allowed IF A PERSON HAS THE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY, ie. You cannot be surveilled in your house if you have curtains pulled or no reasonable person could see you from street, now if you are dancing naked in front of the picture window, you have given up that expectation of privacy. If you are conducting an illegal activity say on a public street or using an open type pay phone, big brother can record your voice or video tape you all they want. Just as if a person wants to wander a public beach and photograph/video people they can shoot all they want, the people are in a public area and give up the right to expectation of privacy, but within reason. That is why paparazzi photographers can be right up against celbs on the street, public street public place.

you can use video with microphone IF YOU POST A VISIBLE WARNING TO PEOPLE ENTERING PREMISES THAT VIDEO AND AUDIO MONITORING ARE IN USE! No visible warning somebody is gonna be a cell mate to bubba!!

bada bing bada boom

if any of you can't see how such a huge deal this is, then please go kill yourself now and rid the world of your stupidity.

this is just so wrong on so many levels, the school should only be able to monitor the laptop when two conditions are met: during school hours and while on campus, other than that turn off your damned spy cam. this is such an invasion and anyone who has fallen victim should feel violated.

i hope these parents take the school for all they've got, get the people who's idea this was fired and anyone along the way who didn't question if what they were doing is right.

In response to several users, I admittedly do work for A school district, however I want to be clear in stating I have nothing to due with the district in question. Firstly, I must say I DO NOT agree with randomly utilizing a laptop's camera to simply "check in". The only time it should even be considered is when an administrator is inspecting logs, and finds something suspicious. I didn't see anything addressing the time in the pdf, but I know I don't even examine logs off the clock, so I would not even have the opportunity to attempt such acts. The district I work at also does not issue student laptops to take home (partially due to lack of funding, but more so due to the degree of mistreatment even on school grounds.) The students and faculty understand their activity is monitored, yet the amount of misuse of school property (yes, a portion of your tax dollars goes to it, but it also goes to governmental property which you don't have ownership of either. Your return on investment is the service performed.) I must state that in the process of of issuing punishment, certainly the first step should simply be observing the student's desktop, but only if the activity appears to still be in progress. Then the only reason I meant to say that the camera should be used is for user identification. Sure, the student should be logging into their own account with a strong password, but what I don't want is for an account to be compromised and the student be held responsible if it can be avoided. In most cases though it seems to me that administrators would be finding the activity "after the fact" anyways. I think those who believe the administrators should be fired immediately are being far too intolerant. I am not quick for anyone to lose their job, particularly when someone has a home and family to think about. This is a situation which requires an in depth, logical, unbiased analysis. If you were able to formulate your opinion in under a minute, I don't believe you have given the situation enough rational thought. I know I am personally not 100% firm on my viewpoint, but please do not expect to change my views with any kind of insults, or that you can really slam your gavel the same day you heard about this. (I know, this does not apply to everyone) I would not even attempt to do anything similar at work. I work within what I already know is permissible, because I understand that even with the best intentions, law is law.

There is keylogging software that can be remotely accessed to see if it is being abused. There is NO reason good enough for secret remote users accessing the webcam on a child's laptop. You tread on very thin ice if you think it's justifiable in ANY way. Think about it really hard.

This seems to be the way America is going. Everybody is a cop. Now Google is partnering up with the NSA and you can't seem to get them out of your PC. We pushed the Pigs back in the 60's but the Sow is in heat again. Be afraid people, Very Afraid.

If the school district captured children naked via the web cams, can anyone say child pornography?

Quite honestly, if my computer's camera light turn on i would get a bit freaked out and tape something over it.

That is absurd. I don't care how you dress it up logically, that is an invasion of privacy and no teacher has that level of control over a student or child for any reason. I don't care if you think the kid is a suspected terrorist. Teachers are not cops and do not follow the same rules as the government. That person should be fired and this incident should be permanently marked on their record. Teachers are, after all, paid by taxes. Thus they too can be fired since they answer to the people, and the people do not answer to them. They were never in their lives given such authority over children.

And since there was no disclaimer stating that they would use the PCs for this reason when they were "given" to the children, then if those were my kids I would press charges for the fullest extent the law would allow me.

But I digress, I would not put my children, if I indeed had any children, in public schooling. They would be privately schooled or home schooled, and this is the reason why.

Those laptops should be seized.

maybe they just don't notice the light. not like its super bright, especially wen you are concentrating on something.

oow dear people... oow dear. I'm reading all these comments and some of them are just ridiculous!

Dude! shut up! you are very narrow minded. We deal with things a lot worse than this everyday! fair enough I don't read much about stories like this but I just don't think a school would do this without any warning to the child or parents.

Ha ha! this one made me chuckle! No Offence, but CALM DOWN LOVE! jesus! anyway you may have a valid point in saying that they were "given no disclaimer" but again I highly doubt this. If so then no one should be sued no one should lose a job. Instead the school should just be forced to take the software off?

I work for an IT services company here in Britain and I get a thing called logmein! which if you don't know means I can remote control any computer I want with the user knowing. But you would not believe the things I have seen on some users computers! which if I wanted could easily download to my machine.

But I don't, do you know why? because it has nothing to do with me! I am there to fix the issue not to look at naked pictures of the user or their ilegal Child porn collection.

In this particular instance this admin should have only used the camera to make sure it was being used by the correct user and thats it! shouldn't have reported that the user was taking "Pills" which were actually sweets.

At the end of the day the admin f*cked up and won't do it again. Period! Its school property laptops therefore the school can do anything with them anyway.

but it did happen, and what are the "worse" things "we" deal with everyday?

Well we deal with terrorists, bombings, killers, rapists, child abusers... the list is endless! so why make such a big deal out of this? no one got hurt, no one got vialated in any major or even minor way. Its totally irrational to just want to sue a school which was paid from your taxes anyway because they where concerned that one of there pupils may have been taking some kind of pill?

Can you not see that it was stupid and a mistake but the whole situation is being treated by everyone who reads this story, worse than a killing down your local high street?!

Fair enough maybe the school shouldn't be able to just blindly switch the camera on but at least its for fair reasons. They're not good enough reasons but at least they mean't well.

I just think its a bit unfair that your looking at this as a proper major thing yet i bet if someone was killed within 10 miles of your house wouldn't be as concerned as you are with this stupid mistake by a school admin?!

(and yes the last bit was aimed at foreverzero89)

if your friend lent you a laptop then used it to spy on you in your own home would you be friend with them any more? no you wouldn't. there were many violations here here: of trust, of the law, and of basic human decency. if stuff like this is allowed to happen at schools, a place where trust is BIG, then where does it stop? this cannot be allowed to continue.

using "terrorists" as an excuse to violate my, and anyone else, rights is a weak argument at best. this can also be as form of child abuse as well. anyone that is allowed to take candid pictures of minors in their bedrooms should be in jail.

if your 15 year-old son or daughter was "caught" by the school district doing something in her room would you be furious? yes, you would. maybe you should think about that before you try to defend what is going on here.

this can very well lead to something bigger than just the school board being peeping toms.

Matt and to all who are missing the point alltogether... Because the School provided the laptop - it is ok??

Who do think provided the gym showers and bathrooms, why not a place a pinhole camera there?? After all it is school property?

C'mon people - wake up!

If a friend "gave" me a laptop I would expect them to do something as stupid (and funny) as install a piece of software thats activates the camera! But I wouldn't stop being friends with them!? your taking this way to far.

I have never trusted a school, ever. Who does? I trust they'll teach me to write talk and learn maths and science but I would never actually trust them with my records or giving me a laptop? I would never trust a computer that was given to me. Only a computer I have brought, rebuilt and secured my own way would I trust.

When ever I'm at work and logon to someones machine I take every step possible to make sure i'm not going to get a virus on my machine or anything like that from this other machine because its not trusted. And it stops when the admin does actually have pictures of users naked hidden in a folder on the network or has a background of being a peado or been in jail before. then it should be taken seriously and delt with in a harsh manner.

But the admin is not a perv or anything like that. Its unfair to treat him like one.

"if your 15 year-old son or daughter was "caught" by the school district doing something in her room would you be furious? yes, you would." - again how do you know I would be? all depends on the situation. If it was a dodgy school with low funding then they won't be giving laptops to pupils. A decent school with funding to do such a thing like give pupils laptops to use then I wouldn't go mad as a first reaction like you have. I would ask how they know and how they found there information and aquired the picture. I would then ask for a full investigation on the IT team at the school to make sure they are not doing aything other than monitoring to check its the right user. I would then do nothing more if my findings were Adequate and I was satisfied that they really were just making sure that the laptop had not been stolen and were concerned about my son/daughters well being when they thought it was pills. I would be happy about it but I wouldn't be as annoyed as you appear to be.

Please note I meant I wouldn't be happy about it.

Just been reading more into this and again they did break some rules so I can see why the parents are angry but I think they are reacting a little too harshly to the whole situation. as what the school has stated. It was only a security system thats only activated if the laptop is reported lost stolen or missing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8523807.stm

This is so wrong it boggles the mind especially since it involves children. At the very least parents should of been notified of this before it was issued to the kids.

And I have no idea what a spycam on a laptop has to do with locating it if it was missing or stolen. You would install a GPS chip in it for that...so that excuse is bull.

This school board is run by morons in my opinion and deserved to be sued. I would be mad as hell if this happened to me.

I think alot of people are missing the point.

Why is a public school district issuing laptop for high school use? We have school that are firing teachers and cutting activities and yet this school district is giving students macbooks. Spying is wrong, but why is no one upset about that?

I agree with you 100%. The only reason software such as this was created is so companies or individuals could track their laptop if it is stolen. There is no reason whatsoever, if the laptop hasn't been reported stolen, for a school administrator to activate it.

I've checked logs on literally thousands of computers for signs of misuse within my company, and if I found any, only needed to check the login used to verify the identity of the person abusing their priveledges. The person whose login was active at the time is the person responsible, period. I didn't need a camera to verify that Mattfrompa.

Burty, you're wrong on so many levels I don't even know what to say. When dealing with minor children, under the age of 18 and off school property, the school has absolutely NO right to activate a camera on the laptop unless it has been reported stolen by that student, PERIOD.