Pennsylvania: Federal judge orders school to allow students and parents to see Webcam spy photos

While authorities are investigating whether a school district committed any crimes in sying on students through school-issued Macbooks, a federal judge ordered the Lower Merion School District to allow students and parents to view the screenshots taken in their homes. -db

Wired
May 17, 2010
By David Kravets

Suburban Philadelphia parents and their high school-age children soon will learn the extent of a potentially criminal webcam scandal.

A federal magistrate on Friday ordered the Lower Merion School District to start sending notification letters to any student covertly spied on through their school-issued Macbook, as well as to their parents. The order covers screenshots taken by school officials, and pictures snapped of the pupils through their webcams.

A lawsuit alleges an untold number of the district’s 2,300 Macbooks took tens of thousands of pictures of the students (.pdf) — at home, at school and even in bed. Lawyers suing the district allege some of the pupils were photographed nude.

The court order is part of a proposed class-action lawsuit against the 6,900-student district, which discontinued the LANrev webcam-tracking program in February after a sophomore’s parents learned that their son was secretly photographed at home.

Under the order (.pdf), issued by Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, affected students and their parents will have the option of viewing the captured images privately, though they won’t be given a copy. The students can also preview the images outside the presence of their parents, and ask the judge to block their parents from access to particularly sensitive images.

A different judge in the case last week ordered the same evidence to be turned over to the FBI, as federal officials probe the webcam scandal for “possible criminal conduct.” (.pdf). Still, it remains unclear whether the secret and remote filming of anyone, even minors, is a federal crime.

The district claims the cameras were activated only a handful of times when a laptop was reported stolen or missing.

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