Family's attorney has asked a federal judge to issue an order preventing any deletion of materials on ALL school issued laptops.... seeking class action.

http://www.centredaily.com/2010/02/2...ol-laptop.html

Somebody is going to look at every file on every student's laptop. Some 2300 of them.

If the school prevails in its argument that the computers belong to them and they therefore have a right to look at anything on them, then they have opened Pandora's box. The school is a public entity which means anything on those hard drives is public information. Public information can be demanded by any citizen under the state's Freedom of Information Act. This has been tested in court in my state and the public right to know has always prevailed.... even when the data was extremely personal in nature (in this case emails sent/received on a state owned computer).

Sorry no they are not public record. There are many federal acts which would prohibit public access to such data. HIPPA, CIPA, ECPA, and many other acts which could prevent them from being public access. You think it would be legal to post a student's transcript, or perhaps any medical data that might be on a school system?

When it involves a minor a lot of those things go out the window, and some of the information that a school could have on a kid could be protected by several pieces of legislation.

In the end, all this is doing is killing their 1:1 program. Plus we don't know all the facts and I read a blurp about that family on another blog, where someone else who lives in that same city accused this family of being lawsuit happy. Apparently according to this random post (which I have had a hard time trying to verify via google) they are also involved in several other lawsuits to other organizations which are local. In the end this may kill a great program and opportunity for children to actually get a better education in this country.

I am still waiting for all the facts to surface.

That will be the school's argument of course. The attorneys will argue that information protected by statute can be deleted, simply provide all data that is not protected. They might well get access to every file with the protected information blotted out and the other information still present.... like the old CIA documents with three words not blotted out. They can withhold the protected information, but that does not give them the right to withhold everything else in the document or hard drive.

Any data the attorneys need to build their case (discovery) will be provided, I think, and once introduced into court, then for sure that becomes public information unless the judge seals it to protect the minors.... e.g. minor's name not released. School will not be permitted to simply say no and build a brick wall around all the potentially damaging evidence.

Like you I am hoping there is more to the story, but given FBI and Federal Court involvement my sense is there have been some violations. We'll see.

Much of this may come down to the State's Freedom of Information Act, as opposed to the Federal FOI version, and I don't know for sure if Penn has such an Act. Most states do. We're into the courts now, the opportunity to just do what's right is gone.

Another investigative post: http://www.saveardmorecoalition.org/blog/2
Not nearly as in depth as strydehax, but still interesting.
Also, Bruce Schneider has a post, characteristically devoid of commentary, but the comments are usually interesting.

The most interesting opinion that I've seen lately is sympathy towards the IT guy who deployed the monitoring system. It's likely true that the school administration decided to implement computer tracking and then said "Do it". But, I don't think I buy the "Just following orders" argument.

Sheesh, even Absolute Software (owners of Absolute Manage, formerly LANRev, the software used by LMSD) have thrown the school under the bus and will be removing the camera monitoring feature.

The LMSD initial response

From my understanding this is what happened. Absolute acquired LANrev, then during this process Absolute was integrating some of their products with LANrev and taking out features they did not want, but I also read somewhere that the feature to remotely activate the camera is not part of their package.

I think actually, either an old legacy version of LANrev, or the IT guy bundled iSightCapture with their image/deployment and management software.

Unfortunately, there are those people that sit in positions of authority and they overstep their boundaries. I admit I have used remote desktop to spy on students before but it was never to single anyone out. I was observing, finding what proxies they were using, compiling a list of proxies and then blocking them with our filter. Since for us to maintain our eRate status we must be fully CIPA compliant, and if you get into CIPA, it is pretty vague. It is pretty much up to the person auditing you to decide if you are with in the standards or not.

Working IT in academia sharpens your skills compared to working in the private sector. You have so many federal regulations upon you, you have so many pressures from the school board and the directors and executives to maintain a good role model status, and the software developers that write educational software typically make crappy products. So, you have to get real creative with the systems you build.

I posted a few responses on Stryde's blog expressing my feelings towards Absolute's product not being the issue here, nor the company to blame, nor the IT guy that built it up. After all, most likely he got 15 projects dumped on his lap and some director asking him to just make it work, and I know from experience when you want to request another technology to help make all these technologies to coalesce, you typically get the no response.

If someone came into my school system in my 1:1 and started accusing me and my co-workers of such nonsense I would be pretty mad. I work my ass off there and I create all the back end and develop all the creative methods and policies to get the job done with our servers and the Casper Suite. I mean, when I created the dual boot policy that allowed managed users to dual boot with never ever needs an admin log in, my Apple SE told me universities at that time (this was 2 years ago) couldn't accomplish what I was doing. They did not have the tools or the know how. The funny thing is, I got most of my concepts from picking part Mike Bombich's code for netrestore, ccc, and looking at the source code for refit. Luckily, for us where I work, I think we do use "best practices," when it comes to these sort of things.

I totally gave every principal in one building a flat screen monitor, a mac mini, and ARD admin, then deployed a special hidden ard access account they could use (so if it leaked or got out I could easily shut it down) to observe and control student laptops during school hours. Which took the whole spying on kids thing off IT's hands and into the hands of the people who are in charge of discipline.

On a side, and sort of off topic note. These 1:1 programs are really awesome. I can't really express how cool I think they really are. Especially, at a school system where I work where most kids are extremely under privileged. If there is one great thing I will take away from this job, is humility, and the fact that I know I have lived a privileged life compared to many out there. I grew up lower middle class so for a long time I kind of saw myself as a "has not," but now working in this school system I really feel that I have had a very lucky and privileged life. These kids, get to learn how to shoot and edit videos as part of their lessons. They get to create music in garage band. I mean how awesome is that? When I was in school, we had like 3 computer labs total of 386s and a few Apple IIe computers. I really hope lawsuits like this don't stop American public education to suspend such plans. So far the our standardized testing results have gone up each year since the laptops, and I think kids are more inclined to research and write papers using the Internet over the library system.

I think we need to play it cool until we know the facts.

I guess by nature most on this forum will be focusing on the IT issues. I'm not. It was the school administration that crossed the line by using the technology for purposes other than the stated purpose (apparently) . It was the vice principal who confronted the student/family with the snapshot of the child eating candy... woefully unaware of what he/she was doing and had done and the consequences of those actions.

Sure, if would have been nice if the capability didn't exist w/i the school's system. But, it was the use of that technology that violated privacy, not the existence of a capability.

The technology was used to enforce the rules. Does a store need to inform you that they use video cameras for security? No. You know you're in their store just like you know that you're using school equipment, and that is enough.

Stores don't have the right to put cameras in your car and in your home to make sure you didn't steal anything just in case the in-store cameras missed it.

Not YET!!! *cue black helicopter sounds...wait, they don't make sound*

I think the disconnect in this thread seems to stem from the ambiguity of the laptop. Was the laptop

1) issued to this student as a tool for them to use? or
2) was it loaned for "homework use only"? or
3) was it used as a tool by the administration to investigate it's student body?

Since this whole issue was exposed by the Mike & Ike incident...it's clear the admins were using this as an investigative tool. If they mistakenly took a picture of a student while looking for a stolen laptop then they should have ignored the content. Instead they tried to bust a kid for eating candy.

Cameras in public spaces are a completely different issue. I understand that on my walk to work my picture is taken by many, many cameras...as well as every time I get cash from an ATM, walk into a restaurant/cab/hotel/corner store, but it's my choice to leave the house and interact with society.

If I stay holed up in my living room all eating bon-bons and watching Jersey Shore I don't want someone watching me in turn...just sayin

CWT, is there a limit, anywhere, where you would consider the school's delving into a family's private life without their knowledge would cross the line? Yes, without their knowledge.... they did not know and I don't think you can prove or even assume they did.

No limit because it is both with the family's knowledge and with their help. The camera does nothing if the computer is not on, and the school does not bring the computer into the house. That's up to the family. There is no reason to expect the school not to have some system (and secret is better than not secret, especially with kids, who are likely to try to subvert the system if they're aware of it!) for enforcing its rules.

One more thing: protecting little Johnny or Jane from every little embarrassment is a good way to set them up for huge problems when they become adults. Corporations do spy on their employees, not all the time, but they do, and when it makes the news (if at all) it's because they've used that information to fire them. The reaction to this incident is not a good sign for this particular kid's future when he will not have mommy and daddy to make a big stink over some perceived slight.

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CWT, I need to be blunt: The views you express are beyond surreal.
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Private corporations have an inherent right to protect their property, be it tangible or not. They have a right to assess security measures by many different means, as they see necessary to ensure no one is selling out trade secrets, clients, and so forth. Just like an individual has every right to protect and defend their own private property.

However, there is a fine line here in our society. Things like this are against our rights, and things like the Patriot Act are a huge affront to our rights and civil liberties.

No one should ever be searched or have their property seized with out proper and due process of the law. The rights are there for a reason, it is so people do not get abused by the government or anyone else. This country was founded upon such principals. Our fore fathers could not have even fathomed what technology would have brought us. If they would have known the amount of privacy the Internet takes away, I am sure they would have added some privacy clauses.

If the school activated the camera in reaction to a theft, it could be justifiable, but if they activated the camera to spy on kids after school hours off of school grounds not only are they way out or their jurisdiction, they are also violating these people's rights.

I think we are rapidly entering an era where this whole area is going to need some serious legal clarification. Maybe this case is the first step.

Just a couple years down the road, companies and maybe schools are going to be issuing iPhone & iPad type devices to their employees/students. These things go everywhere with you, including rest rooms, bedrooms, bars and on and on. People will be carrying a 24x7 monitoring device with them complete with a GPS locator and a camera.

My last job, I turned down a company issued cell phone and just used my personal phone for business. They couldn't understand why I would do that, but they were happy to say okay. Neither would I take one of their laptops home... I just burnt a cd or emailed the files I needed to my private email address and worked at home that way. Until somebody defines exactly where the line is, I'm staying as far away from it as possible.

Really? Can you site an example in the US where an adult has used a Corporate computer, their manager turned on some remote information gathering software and the manager ended up in hot water? Of course not. We take it as a fact of life that a Corporation has a right to protect its property but we're aghast when a government agency tries to protect property bought with taxpayer dollars! Then of course we'll all claim to be shocked when they don't! Now that's surreal.

*sigh* Can we just delete the above, ban the user and get back to Tlarkin's frankly brilliant insights into how technology works in a school? Please? I was learning here...

Nice thought Jay, but....

Please provide an example where a manager remote-activated a webcam in the employee's residence. Looking at company email is ok.

Many companies here in Japan ban webcams on any company computer - they are concerned that someone will do exactly this. Similarly, mobile phones with cameras are put in tiny lockers just outside the door. Schools are sufficiently backwards that the issue hasn't come up.

On topic, please!
 

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*Sigh...* I agree, Jay and Acme -- this is an artificial tertiary issue, and a bloody distracting one at that.

Looks like I may have to establish a separate thread entitled "Webcam activated by employer in worker’s home"? All it requires is one more derailing post.

Let’s keep this on topic!
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Agree. TL is a lot more on top of these issues than me, so I was learning, too. Easy to yell "invasion of privacy" but that doesn't begin to explain the issue because we have not heard from the school. Given we may never hear the school's side, or maybe years from now, I for one appreciate TL's views.

A related thread: "How to detect webcam activity"
 

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I would like to point out that Tom Larkin, Fracai, DE9 and others have made a number of fascinating posts in a thread started by John Sawyer, How to detect webcam activity, under Hardware & Peripherals. These posts discuss the more technical aspects of this.

Enjoy! :)

-- ArcticStones

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