US school controls pupils' laptop webcams to spy on the pupils at home!

This article from Boing Boing is quite staggering. It seems that:

"According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines."

This is staggering, the laptops issued to high-school students have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators theoretically to spy on students and their families.


A comment to the Boing Boing article left me even more shocked:

"Digital Nation, the documentary/project that Douglas Ruskoff was/is a big part of, explored a similar issue. They showed a school (middle or high school) that really embraced laptops and new media as part of the learning process. It was the job of a staff member to spend a couple hours each day monitoring what the students were doing - working, surfing, etc. The staff member who was monitoring showed how he could remotely snap a photo when a student was using Photobooth during class, and how this usually caused them to get back to work.

But that was at school with laptops presumably provided by the school, so while it still feels a bit odd to me, I think there's a good argument for the practice in that environment.

But to extend that to the students' homes? That's terrible. And really creepy.

I hope it wasn't the same school that they showed in Digital Nation, because I kinda liked their style. "