School District Allegedly Spied on Students

When Blake J. Robbins logged onto his school-issued laptop at home, he had no idea that district officials could see what he was doing.

But in November, he found out. And on Tuesday, his parents did something about it. Michael E. Robbins and Holly S. Robbins filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Lower Merion School District, the district's board of directors and Superintendent of Schools Christopher W. McGinley for violating the privacy of their son and the other high school students in the district.

The school district was in the final stages of giving laptops, which included built in webcams, to each of the approximately 1,800 student in its two high schools.  According to the lawsuit, the Pennsylvania school district had been surveiling Blake and his classmates by remotely activating the webcams while they were at home.

The students and parents were not informed that the school staff could monitor their behavior. On Nov. 11, an assistant principal from Harriton High School told Blake that the school district believed he was "engaged in improper behavior at his home." Her proof came from a photograph captured by the webcam that was embedded in his laptop.

And that violates a number of laws, the lawsuit states, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, The Computer Fraud Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, a section of the Civil Rights Act, the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act and Pennsylvania common law.

The school district responded today in a letter posted on the district Web site that Superintendent McGinley wrote. He said that "the laptops contain a security feature to track lost, stolen and missing laptops. This feature has been deactivated today."

He went on to explain how the security feature worked and denied the charges that were filed.

"Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the district's security and technology departments. The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen. This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The district has not used the tracking feature or webcam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever."

If the school district did use the webcams to spy on students at home, the parents are justified in filing the suit, said Lillie Coney, associate director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. While lawsuits have been filed regarding student strip searches and cameras placed in bathroom doorways, this is the first lawsuit that has been taken to court over this kind of issue.

While schools should monitor students' behavior in the building, on field trips and at sponsored events, they have no right to monitor what they do at their house, Coney said.

“How does a school get the power to decide to deploy surveillance technology and use it in that way?" Coney asked. "It’s like the ultimate police state experience.”