Yesterday, we reported on the lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania high schooler Blake Robbins against his school for invasion of privacy. Robbins was one of 1,800 students given a laptop for home use by the Lower Merion School District. When Robbins was punished by a vice principal at Harriton High School for “improper behavior at home,” the evidence was allegedly a webcam photo that the vice principal had taken of Robbins at home by activating a webcam remotely.
Robbins filed a class action lawsuit for invasion of privacy, which garnered widespread media attention. Last night, the school’s superintendent, Dr. Christopher McGinley, responded by announcing that the spying feature was being turned off — but that the school had never spied as alleged. Here’s an excerpt from Dr. McGinley’s letter to parents (available in full after the jump):
Laptops are a frequent target for theft in schools and off school property. District laptops do contain a security feature intended to track lost, stolen and missing laptops. The security feature, which was disabled today, was installed to help locate a laptop in the event it was reported lost, missing or stolen so that the laptop could be returned to the student.
Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature would be activated by the District’s security and technology departments. The security feature’s capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
Many alumni of the school district are discussing the case. One reached out to us to offer scuttlebutt about the “improper behavior” that Robbins got in trouble for. The alumnus also suggests that the story is more complicated than it has been presented by Blake Robbins in his complaint.
One alumnus, who wishes to remain anonymous — no, it’s not Kobe Bryant — wrote us this note:
I am a graduate of Harriton’s sister school, Lower Merion High School, so this story has created a lot of gossip and discussion with friends from home. First, this kid’s facebook page is up and fully accessible to the public. There are some interesting things, including interesting pictures (including some clearly taken during webcam chats on his computer), comments, and his facebook wall has several comments essentially congratulating him on the lawsuit…
We were all very surprised to see that no one, especially his attorneys, have advised him to takedown his facebook page, or at the very least put on some privacy settings. Second, while the complaint leads one to believe that the improper behavior the webcam captured was pornographic in nature, sources have been saying that he was “caught” smoking marijuana via the webcam (on that note, there appears to pictures on his facebook account showing him smoking).
We checked out Robbins’s Facebook page. We didn’t see the webcam photos, but we did see a few status updates, from January 1, that might lend credence to our tipster’s claim:
“crush a bit. little bit. roll it up. take a hit.”
We did see that he joined the Facebook group Teenagers who actually don’t drink or do drugs, at the end of January, though we note that some people join said group just to leave messages like this on its wall: “AHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE METH!!!!!!!!! I SMOKE WEED!!!!!!!!”
A few days later, he joined the Facebook group Meeting someone who is also drunk and immediately becoming best friends.
Yes, it might be wise for his attorneys at Lamm Rubenstone to advise Robbins to up the privacy settings on his Facebook profile. Or not to post about drugs and underage drinking.
But his illicit behavior aside, teachers shouldn’t be spying on kids at home. The superintendent says it did not happen — and will never happen again as the spycam feature is being turned off in the laptops. Supposedly.
If our tipster is right, and there are webcam photos on his Facebook profile, it’s possible that the vice principal pulled the shot of “improper behavior at home” from there. But in their complaint, Robbins’s father claims that the vice principal told him that “the school district in fact has the ability to remotely activate the webcam contained in a student’s personal laptop computer issued by the school district at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer.”
And the Legal Intelligencer noted this comment on Digg made by one willhockey16, who claims to have also participated in the Pennsylvania laptop program:
Occasionally we would notice that the green light was on from time to time but we just figured that it was glitching out as some macbooks do sometimes. Some few covered it up with tape and post its because they thought the IT guys were watching them. I always thought they were crazy and that the district, one of the more respectable ones within the state, would never pull some ***** like this. I guess I was wrong.
If nothing else, use this post as a warning, both to your children about what they post about themselves on Facebook, and for yourself, to be aware of the green light on your laptop camera.
EMAIL FROM LOWER MERION SCHOOL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT
From: Lower Merion School District – PA
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 9:33 PM
Subject: Email from Lower Merion School District
Dear LMSD Parents/Guardians,
Our history has been to go to great lengths to protect the privacy of our students; whether it comes to student health, academic or other records. In fact, many of you may remember the heated debate over whether to have security cameras monitor some of our food vending machines. Privacy is a basic right in our society and a matter we take very seriously. We believe that a good job can always be done better.
Recent publicity regarding the District’s one-to-one high school laptop initiative, and questions about the security of student laptops prompted our administration to revisit security procedures.
Laptops are a frequent target for theft in schools and off school property. District laptops do contain a security feature intended to track lost, stolen and missing laptops. The security feature, which was disabled today, was installed to help locate a laptop in the event it was reported lost, missing or stolen so that the laptop could be returned to the student.
Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the District’s security and technology departments. The security feature’s capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen. This feature was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
As a result of our preliminary review of security procedures today, I directed the following actions:
- Immediate disabling of the security-tracking program.
- A thorough review of the existing policies for student laptop use.
- A review of security procedures to help safeguard the protection of privacy; including a review of the instances in which the security software was activated. We want to ensure that any affected students and families are made aware of the outcome of laptop recovery investigations.·
- A review of any other technology areas in which the intersection of privacy and security may come into play.
We are proud of the fact that we are a leader in providing laptops to every high school student as part of our instructional program. But we need to be equally as proud of the safeguards we have in place to protect the privacy of the users, as well as to safeguard district-owned property while being used by students.
We regret if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families. If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at info@lmsd.org.
Additional information has been posted on our website, www.lmsd.org.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Dr. Christopher W. McGinley
Superintendent of Schools
Lower Merion School District
School District Accused of Spying on Students via Home Webcams [Legal Intelligencer]
Earlier: Lawsuit of the Day: Hey Teacher, Leave Them Kids Alone!
(Or: Activating Laptop Webcams to Spy on Students at Home is Not Cool)
First from CT
Odd Blood.
They are “Immediate disabling of the security-tracking program.” ???
Where they tracking the laptops? and through the laptops tracking students?
Can information about what pictures and data was being captured and stored be aquired through a FOIA request?
I think my Lower Merion school taxes are about to be raised. Damn you Lamm Rubenstone!!
3 – The videos of undressing teenage girls that anyone with a brain is sure the school administrators were watching have no doubt long since been deleted if they were ever recorded to begin with and the machines reformatted entirely to try to get rid of any trace of what they were doing. And now they tell you “we’re turning it off” – so what? They can turn it back on tomorrow.
If you are a parent whose child has been given a laptop by a school, they should be leaving it at school and using it for absolutely nothing but their school work – this incident is a prime example of how trustworthy public officials and school personnel are when it comes to your privacy or anything else.
Well, Blake has privacy settings up now–his pictures are no longer available and neither is most of his information. His attorneys must read ATL.
Well, Blake has privacy settings up now–his pictures are no longer available and neither is most of his information. His attorneys must read ATL.
Well, Blake has privacy settings up now–his pictures are no longer available and neither is most of his information. His attorneys must read ATL.
For the last time, UPenn is not a public school. I bet you goto Cornell, which is half-public.
Does Blake have any privacy settings on his FB page?
His sisters are hot pieces of jailbait.
If the school used a pic from the webcam snapped at home to discipline the student, the school loses. Doesn’t matter if it was accidental or the result of a “security feature” or whatever.
I went to Harriton High School… We never got free laptops!
Is this how Kash’s infamous beaver shot made it onto the interwebs???
As your attorney, I advise you to smoke your weed in the stairwells at school and then run away from Inspector Gadget who used to hide in closets and then pop out to bust you, like I did when I went to LM.
Hey Detective ATL, maybe google the kid’s status before you imply he’s using drugs.
“Crush a bit; Lil’ bit; Roll it up; take hit” are lyrics in a rap song. It’s the reprieve in Pursuit of Happiness by Kid Cudi.
It’s pretty much the equivalent of someone 25+ putting up “I let my tape rock till my tape stopped. Smokin weed and bamboo sippin’ on private stock.”
(Those are lyrics to Juicy by The Notorious B.I.G.)
13 is new here.
How fucking stupid is the vice principal? Also, who said there were teenage girls undressing? That wasn’t in the article.
Whoa! I posted from my phone and it only posted once. ATL has revamped its servers.
23
Whoa! I posted from my phone and it only posted once. ATL has revamped its servers.
23
24/25 = best posts of the day
23 – If they were watching students, which includes girls, at home, without their knowledge, what do you think the odds are that no one was seen in a state of undress? I’d say zero.
The funny thing is 13’s exasperation suggests s/he is not new here. Just the last one to get the joke. I guess they’re not imbued with a sharp wit at UPenn State.
Joe Paterno would be spinning in his grave right now if he could see all these UPenn State morons on here – the place is sure going down hill
Its always about the teenage girls undressing, unless its about teen age boys undressing. Depends and the administratorssexual preference.
19 – yes.
UPenn isn’t really private, it is?
UPenn isn’t really private, is it?
UPenn really private isn’t, is it?
UPenn really private isn’t, is it?
33-36: UPenn is the premier public educational institution of Pennsylvania. It has a broad mission to serve the public.
I went to Upper Merion. Lower Merion was so low. I met Joe Paterno in a bar in Conshohocken thirty years ago. Neither one of us has changed a bit. Now were are my teeth?
Messing with UPenn State people never gets old. They’re as defensive as IUPUI kids.
3 -
FOIA is essentially only at the federal level. States have their own rules, modeled on FOIA.
This includes Pennsylvania, which adheres by the “Right to Know” law: http://openrecords.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/open_records/4434
According to this law, the definition of a public record is ‘A record is defined as “any information regardless of its physical form or character that documents a transaction or activity of an agency AND is created, received, or retained pursuant to law OR in connection with a transaction, business or activity of an agency.”
Records can take many forms, including papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, film or sound recordings, information stored or maintained electronically and a data-processed or image-processed documents. Note that e-mails can also be a form of public records, subject to any exceptions.’
So yes, feasibly, I think one could request these records by way of “Right to Know.”
I’m not a lawyer, I just know a little bit about the FOIA process. But I do like reading this blog quite a bit, it’s interesting :)
Mary Jane has to be the worst, most evil office administrator in biglaw. Her sadistic and inhumane treatment of PH’s employees has driven morale in NY as low as it can go. This place is about to implode.
You’re kidding!? This story is more complicated than you first reported? Golly, if you only had it to do over again, I’m sure you’d never trade hits for scruples. Trash.
i hear dominic dumped mary jane’s fat ass. what a hoot!
this ” crush a bit. little bit. roll it up. take a hit.” is a song. Google it.
When a child is at home he is at home. School has no business disciplining a child for behavior at home. They need to mind their own business.
Your concern with the student’s behavior, whether he was in fact a straight-edge saint or a meth-head is completely irrelevant. Laws are designed, indeed the only measure of their strength is whether they can protect the most vile individuals. I don’t see how this kid smoking pot changes anything.
I just got accepted to UPenn State and am trying to decide which campus would be better for me. The Philadelphia campus obviously has more urban life, is closer to bars, etc., but I hear the State College campus attracts smarter students and offers a better education. Plus, I'd get to go to all of the football games.
Any advice you could give would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Er, Penn State is in Carlisle and State College, UPenn is in Philadelphia, very different entities.