School Used Laptops to Spy on Students at Home

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[2] Lawsuit Alleges School Used Laptops to Spy on Students at Home======================================================================= Parents of a student attending Harriton High School filed a lawsuitagainst the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania for usingschool-issued laptop web cameras to spy on students. Court papersCharge that the school district is in violation of the ElectronicCommunications Privacy Act, the Fourth Amendment, the PennsylvaniaWiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act and Pennsylvania commonlaw. The lawsuit arose when the high school's assistant principle, LindyMatsko, informed one of the students that the School District believedhe was engaged in improper behavior in his home. Ms. Matsko then citedevidence of a photograph from the students' laptop webcam as evidenceof his wrongdoing. Lower Merion School District acknowledges that it did install webcamera spyware on laptops issued to students and provided no notice toparents or students regarding the district’s ability to remotelyaccess, capture images of the surroundings, and screenshot informationon users. The technology also allowed global positioning data, IPaddress capture, domain name service logging, as well as recording ofdate, and times information. The school district states that it onlyused this capability 42 times during the 2009-2010 academic school yearto located reported "stolen" laptops. Laptops were only allowed to contain software installed by the schooldistrict, which purchased the Apple Laptops. The Lower Merion SchoolDistrict student handbook states that the laptops was to be used for"educational purposes." The list of "Laptop Capabilities at home"enabled a wide range of Macintosh social networking and user engagingapplications such as ichat, iTunes, iweb, ichat, iphoto. The schooldistrict nor the school is reported to have used Apple parentalcontrols to limit the time of day the computer would be available northe use of Apple social networking features. The "Getting StartedGuide" states that the same laptop would be issued to the same studentsthroughout their time at the school. Complaint http://privacy.org/PA_Webcam-case.pdf EPIC: Children's Privacy http://epic.org/privacy/kids/ Lower Merion School District: Statement 2/19/2010 http://www.epic.org/redirect/022510schoolsmt.html Lower Merion School District: Student Guide http://epic.org/privacy/kids/harriton-student_guide.pdf Lower Merion School District: Getting Started Guide http://epic.org/privacy/kids/getting_started.pdf Lower Merion School District, Laptop Capabilities (Screenshot) http://epic.org/privacy/kids/laptop_home_capabilities.jpg«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»Paranormal_Research - Scientific Data, Health Conspiracies & Anything Strange Paranormal_ResearchSubscribe:... Paranormal_Research- DETOX WITH ALL NATURAL PURE GREEN CALCIUM BENTONITE CLAY USED INTERNAL/EXTERNAL http://clayadvantage.com/ THE OPEN LINE NEWSPAPER, HEALTH NEWS, SPIRITUAL, ENVIRONMENT, ETC. http://WWW.THEOPENLINE.ORG RELAXATION TECHNIQUE FOR CHRONIC PAIN, PTSD + OTHER ISSUES THAT TROUBLE YOU. http://relaxationheals.webs.com

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