School District Releases Report in Spying Case May 6, 2010
You should take everything in this story with a grain of salt. The Merion School District released a report compiled by its own investigators about the alleged spying by the school into the homes of students.
Essentially the school district is saying that, yes, the webcams took upwards of 30,000 pictures and 27,000 screen shots, but all that was a result of failing to deactivate the recovery software after a lost or stolen laptop was recovered.
The school’s explanation for the spying the resulted in the lawsuit:
The report says Robbins turned in his laptop with a broken screen and was issued a loaner on Oct. 20, but school officials quickly moved to retrieve it due to outstanding insurance fees. So the tracking program was activated from Oct. 20 to Nov. 4 and captured 210 webcam photographs and 218 screen shots, the report said.Although a technician confirmed on the first day of tracking that the laptop was “now currently online at home,” another official in the same department instructed him to keep the tracking on and later told investigators he thought he needed authorization to terminate it, the report said.
On Oct. 30, the report said, a technician saw a computer screen shot that “included an online chat that concerned him.” After consulting with a superior, he allowed school officials to look at the images.
So they loaned him the laptop, activated the software, and read his instant messages? Sure sounds like spying to me. Did anyone try calling the family to get the laptop back?
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