School Confirms Ability to Control Student Webcam

Yea, what? Instead of disciplining the kid for doing whatever it was that was bad enough to brought to the attention of the principal, the so called "parents" are going to sue the school??

This is after they basically steal school equipment (laptop borrowed not returned or paid for), but what else would you expect from these parents. What BS.

Thanks for the follow up. This is pretty interesting. One thing though. The principal stated the laptops were provided by the school. How could this laptop not be paid for if the school was providing them?

so if its not paid for instead of going on the persons credit they consider it stolen........ stupid is it really that serious this is a school not a gov or company.

They're providing MACBOOKS!? of all things? Seems really expensive for a school. Why aren't they netbooks or at least regular laptops? How did they manage to convince anyone to go this far in the budget?

Warezme,
How stupid are you? A provided devise that has not been paid for has does not come under stolen it comes under other classifications whereas the computer can be taken back via legal means not by spying. At the point the computer were not paid for the student could be told he would be failing school or something else. However I caught what others have read in that they were "Provided" not "sold" necessarily. This is a clear case of trying to justify why your spying and trying to catch a young child in a compromising position for your personal gratification. I think the FBI should investigate to see if the computers have been used to violate the children in a pornographic manor. This is not just a rant I am serious this is a SERIOUS matter! If the principle and others are not fired and possibly jailed something is wrong!

One of the first high schools in the US? Bullshit. I graduated in 07 and got mine freshman year. 7 years late to being "One of the first" to offer laptops. And ours weren't creepy as hell.

Why are they using macbooks... Budget Busted for real...

Why would a public school district use state tax dollars to buy overpiced apple laptops?

why would they let students take them home?

In what scenario would it be remotely okay to enable the webcam? Teenage girls? hello! this is an IT pervs dream come true!

I would be suing the school board, firing the principal, and calling for the arrest of the vice pricipal.

i think some people are just perverted. what would u gain from watching these kids. fucken weirdos

Wow, apparently someone wanted to get arrested. This might be the most stupid thing I've ever heard. The kid should have put his balls on the camera, then called the police because whoever was watching the video was breaking the law by possessing child porn.

Jeez, if I want to look at child porn I just have to become a principle! Sweet!

Holy invasion of privacy batman...

oh wait, it's a school invading it, we don't have rights at schools anymore do we?

They need to cease this web cam hijacking. There are much better ways to track down a missing laptop. There's no oversight, and too much room for abuse. It allows creepy IT guys and gals to spy on underage students doing questionable things in front of their computers.

It seems like many of you are interpreting this different than I. It looks to me that this particular laptop was not checked out or showed up missing or something. They activated the webcam to recover their property and find out who had it. Who knows what they saw when the webcam was activated. This is nothing new to have location tracking and activating the webcam when a laptop is lost or stolen. The company I worked for had that capability for years has used it to recover several stolen laptops. If the laptop was not missing then the school may have a problem and have some explaining to do.

The sick thing there is no telling how many times the pervert principle watched someone get dressed for school. There should be criminal charges brought up!

"The principal made a statement today during school saying the school district would never use the camera to spy on kids and that the whole situation was being blown out of proportion."

What did they just do. They spied on him and now they're trying to deny any wrongdoing. Sickening

If the person was given the laptop to use for the school yearthen it is not theirs. That is not the same as saying they gave it to him so it is his. On school property or off, day or night, no matter the situation, they laptop is and always was the schools property 100%. You people going off are not being realistic here.

The kid may have not done a report or homework assignment and said it was because he couldn't find his laptop so they turned it on to see who had it, only it was in the kids house all along. You have no idea what the facts are in this case. If he reported it lost with the intention of keeping it then he should be slapped with criminal charges. There could be a hundred situations where they had EVERY right to turn the camera on.

All you privacy freaks don't get on your high horse and defend the rights of the crimal that steals someones smartphone and then gets caught because of a picture taken by it. No you talk smack and say the loser deserved it and praise the owner that tracked them down to get their shit back. But let it be an establishment that does the same thing and they are the evil ______ (government, corporation, school, police etc..)

If my high school provided me with a laptop with a webcam, the first thing I would do is install a fresh copy of Windows, and flash an official BIOS. That way, they can't turn on my webcam, or use any other keyloggers/tracking programs that may have been installed. I wonder if the school has a policy against installing new OSes on the MacBooks?

We still don't know what the student was punished for. If he was punished for taking the laptop with out permission and the laptop came up as lost then I see no problems.

Now!!

If the kid was punished for doing something else at his home and it has nothing to do with the laptop well thats a whole another issue.

Still, either way having the ability to activate the webcam gives me the creeps. Imagine if this was your child I would do some damage control at the school district.

What if the student dropped out or transferred or whatever and the school asked for the laptop back? What if, upon being asked for the laptop back, the student said that it had been lost or stolen? What if, upon being told that the laptop was lost or stolen, the school activated the security feature and obtained pictures of the student using the laptop (an illegal activity once you claim that the laptop was lost or stolen)? What if that's the only illegal activity the kid is being persued because of?

If I install a remotely accessible camera in my car and someone steals my car then am I not allowed to activate the camera for fear that the car may now be in someone's private garage (equivalent of stolen laptop in student's home) or because there might be naked underage kids making out in it (the possessing child porn angle)?

'Seems like a lot of conclusions are being drawn here in the absence of a lot of facts. I'm not saying the school board did the right thing here - perhaps they were well and truly in the wrong, but it seems as though many are unwilling or unable to make room for the possibility that there actions may have been legal and valid.

+1 to budget concerns alone. macbooks, wtf.

No wonder we have bad funding for education.. wasting it all on providing EACH and EVERY student with an Apple laptop

Hey Kids, it's time to rebel, do you care about personal freedoms or would you rather have a macbook? I think you should hand these macbooks back to the school with the a message, "take this book and shove it".

I must admit, after blatantly and illegally violating the student's rights in an inexcusably heavy handed way, getting caught in the act, and sued by an obviously competent law firm, it didn't take the school district long to fabricate a plausible story. I'm envious - when I was young and foolish, I could never make up such a good excuse so fast.

This is an odd situation, Every student provided with a laptop, except him...Which the school activated to find out the location of? Something smells fishy. I don't know what he did, but if he was a student, it seems like the justification of the school may either be fabricated, or a mistake on their part (not registering it to it's user or something), in either case they violated his privacy.

The photo is probably inadmissible as evidence, since it was information gathered by someone other than the police (provided there's even a case of any kind against this kid). They can probably investigate based on it, but not use it as evidence for an arrest. The laws regarding the gathering of evidence are pretty strict...or were until the patriot act. I'm wondering if "evidence" gathered by a non-enforcement agency has any weight at all. And what did he do? Smoke some grass or something?

The point is that he probably should sue imo. His shool surveilling him at home (whether or not it is accidental, and I kind of doubt that) is a pretty straightforward violation of privacy rights, and downright Orwellian. They could pursue his having stolen the laptop, but that's not the issue they brought up with him, they brought up his illegal activity...making their claims for the reasons for their actions suspect.

The premise we are presented with is that the laptops were "given" to the students to use for the whole year yet thier justification for activating the webcam was that the laptop was not paid for? It doesn't look good for the administrators of this program at all if these are the facts.
The original story hinted at other students aware of the webcam activation lights periodically turning on so, it doesn't seem to be an isolated event either. Of course they had to claim responsibility if they are disciplining the student with the webcam as thier evidence.

Sure they needed cameras to track down who stole the laptop... because a thief is not smart enough to use a duct tape over the camera sensor.

Nah, it's just schools going overboard and weird teachers - he wouldn't have the right to punish kids for what they do outside the school anyway.

The lawsuit is perfectly fine. And for those that say the parents should take care of their children better instead of suing the school - you don't know what the "inappropriate behavior" was or whatever was said as reason.

Maybe the kid masturbated, or just swore or talked dirty with a girlfriend or watched some porn - maybe nothing illegal at all. It's not the school's responsability for what the children do after they leave their premises.

I think this is bs. Um they provided the laptops.. But since it wasn't paid for they turned it on? Did they ever send a warning to the kids parent/s. Seems like they knew who had it, why they had it, it's just the kid didn't pay for it yet/in time. Thus, no reason to even bother turning it on when they could've simply have taking it back.

Ya, I hope the kid wins this suit as it's well deserved.

If I had one of these... I would just put tape over the cam and continue on. I am sure that would piss the school executives off even more!