School allegedly uses students' laptop webcam for espionage, lawsuit ensues
Hold onto your butts, kids, we've got a doozy of a story. Let's take this one slow: a class-action lawsuit has been filed in Pennsylvania accusing the Lower Merion school district of "unauthorized, inappropriate and indiscriminate remote activation of a webcam contained within a laptop computer issued to students by the School District" -- without prior knowledge or consent, of course. The tale begins when Assistant Principle Lindy Mastko of Harriton High School informed a student that he was "engaged in improper behavior in his home" and when asked how she knew, the suit alleges Mastko verified to both the boy and his father of the capability for the school district to remotely activate the webcam -- and apparently, that capability is being used.
The school district has yet to respond to the accusations, so at this point we've only got the plaintiff's side of the story -- for all we know this kid took a picture of himself and somehow accidentally uploaded it on the school network. Then again, some purported Lower Merion students just emailed Gizmodo and claimed that their MacBooks' green webcam lights went on at random times, but they were told by IT support that it was just a technical glitch. Holy alleged invasion of privacy, Batman, this could get mighty interesting. PDF of the complaint available below.
[Thanks, Yossi]School allegedly uses students' laptop webcam for espionage, lawsuit ensues originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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