The Merion School Spy-On-Kids-With-Webcam Case

Wow.

Every once in awhile I get hit with a story that leaves me scratching my head and saying to myself, "What the hell were they thinking?"

This particular scratching came from the story pertaining to the Lower Merion School District. The best summary thus far of the events comes from Philly.com. The gist of the story; kid had a school-issued laptop at home, gets called into the office, and the assistant principal confronts the kid with a picture taken by the laptop's built-in web camera showing him with "pills" and accuses the kid of drug activity.

Um...

The school had software called LANRev installed on the laptops for theft control. If a laptop is stolen, then it's "tagged" on a server and the laptop tries to "call home" to record the IP address as well as record snapshots from the web camera and screen activity.

The student's family apparently turned around and filed a lawsuit for invasion of privacy, and from there poo was hitting all sorts of ceiling fans. Students had noticed the webcam light randomly blinking on and off at various times and were told this was a "glitch," that they could ignore it.

Now it's time for all sorts of indignant cries to rise up from the choir...

For example, one parent saying that the computer could have taken pictures of his daughter when she took the computer into the bathroom as she showered. Huh? Isn't that like cooking bacon in the nude? Why would you take a thousand-dollar laptop into a humid, wet room while you were showering? You do know that electronics don't like water, right? (this link gives the example in the transcript of the podcast) My daughter is nearly 18 years old and I wouldn't hesitate to whack her on the back of the head if we spent a thousand dollars on a computer for her and she took it into the bathroom while she showered.

But this does bring up a legitimate concern, namely the ability for someone to get pictures of kids in their rooms in various states of undress. This would then bring the school (or system administrators) into the nasty territory of child pornography.

Hmm...

I'm personally torn on the issue. I've read the excellent writeup by Stryde Hax on his blog here, and I think I understand his viewpoint. Unfortunately it's not really a balanced view on the situation (as is his right to present on his own blog, of course; he I think he has been very understanding of dissenting viewpoints in my opinion and am glad for what he has contributed to the story since most involved seem to prefer throwing out non-constructive or vindictive opinions without any actual content to justify the viewpoint, while Stryde has been very good at articulating his view.)

Here's my take.

People have a right to their property, and to protect said property from theft. If I'm robbed, I am damn well justified in being angry at the violation of my privacy and have a right to be angry at having someone steal my sense of security.

I think I should be allowed to set my computer to do whatever I want. It's mine. If I want it to take pictures and upload them to a server, I should be allowed to do so, as long as there's no intent to violate someone's rights (having my computer take pictures of me during the day or pictures when it's stolen is legit in my book, but having it programmed to take pictures because I'm planting it in a locker room is clearly wrong.)

The school laptop program is giving students school property. This cannot be emphasised enough because people like to conveniently forget that part of the story. The schools is lending property to students. My feeling is that because the laptop isn't mine, and isn't under my control, I'd trust it about as far as I absolutely must and after that it's shut down. The laptop was supposed to be used for schoolwork, not texting friends, browsing the web for porn, or anything else the personal computers are used for, even email that isn't school-related. Anything you do can be recorded and used against you later. I have yet to understand why people can't get that through their heads; just as employers own the computer on your desk at work and can browse your mail and monitor your Internet use, schools have the same rights on their network, and unless it's spelled out otherwise you should reasonably assume those Big Brother rights extend to a laptop you don't own.

I think that a school should be able to do whatever they can for gathering evidence to bust people for stealing expensive property, and taxpayers should support it since this ultimately is funded by the taxpayers. Losing laptops and breaking them and treating them like crap doesn't get them fixed for free. Someone foots the bill, even if the path for the money is convoluted to the point where kids don't understand that Mommy and Daddy may end up having to pay more in taxes because they can't be more responsible with school property.

BUT...

There are caveats to the case. The computers were meant to bridge the digital divide; every kid has a computer with which to do schoolwork under the laptop program, and that meant as they implemented the program that every kid was basically required to use the school laptop to get through their classes. In other words, there wasn't a choice in the matter. They had the laptop, and it was apparently spying on them at times. Again I wouldn't have trusted them for anything not school related; I'd use the laptop for school, and use my own computer for my own personal use. This isn't necessarily an option for kids that don't have computers of their own, and I understand that. But I'm still torn on that as another issue because it seemed that many of the kids that can't afford even a $300 computer manage to afford a cell phone. Priorities. But that's not the topic at hand.

Also, the school denied that the laptops had the ability to take pictures of the kids and spy on them. It's one thing to have the ability, it's another to hide the fact that it can be done. According to the Philly.com story, representatives from the student council asked administrators about this and were basically ignored when they voiced privacy concerns; from the sounds of it the administrators stuck to the story that it was a "glitch" causing the webcam light to come on. Totally unethical.

The Philly story also points out what was possibly the biggest bonehead move on the school's part. The user agreement that the kids and parents had to sign was just the old boilerplate used in past years for using the Internet in the school, nothing new or updated related to using school computers at home. Dude, liability 101...were you all asleep at the wheel here? Where was the tech with half a whit of common sense who stopped to say that maybe you should have special rules in place for kids carrying thousand-dollar equipment around, especially knowing that kids treat school equipment like crap since, "Hey, I didn't pay for it! It's FREE!"

Most parents don't seem to know just how much liability schools have to cover their arses for. When a teacher sees or overhears anything, anything, they have to report it to higher ups or they can be responsible should something happen to said kid. Kid has a bruise around the neck resembling fingers? Kid have unusual cuts on the arms, or marks that look like something was injected with something? Or maybe they heard some passing talk about a kid being coerced into oral sex? These things have to be reported to administrators or authorities.

So if I were there when discussing issues in rolling out these laptops, one of my concerns would be that these things are virtual black boxes for collecting data on kids and that would put technicians into a potentially dangerous situation with knowing "too much." Troubleshooting a computer and running across browsing history involving abortion, drug use, parents raping sons or daughters...sure, chances are slim, but in a litigious society there is little room for "we'll deal with it if it ever comes up" and hope for the best. With the addition of taking pictures of the computers in homes, you can be sure to bet that I'd worry about collateral damage; pot plant in the background? Parent or sibling walking in the background half-nude from the shower? It's a can of worms I'd not want to deal with.

More than that, where are the checks and balances? The article states that the system was only used if requested by administrators at the high school or higher-levels. That isn't good enough. There should have been an iron-clad method for controlling who gets to use this and view the collected evidence, not just within the school but by a third party, such as the local police department. Better yet have the police involved each and every time the system is used.

Side note-the school apparently is saying that the police department did know about it, because the pictures are uploaded to a website where they can view the collected evidence. The retired police chief was quoted as saying he knew nothing about it. Another case of police being...surprise...technology-tarded, nodding their heads when told about what they can do when in fact they had no clue what they were agreeing to? Or is the school lying? Or are the police covering their own behinds?

These seem like common sense cover-your-behind issues that should have been dealt with at the outset of the program.

Of course there are little details that are squeezing out as the story develops. Worse, the details that do leak out are mostly one-sided, as the school plays the stoic "lawyer advises us to say nothing so we're not commenting" game while the kids and parents are shooting off whatever details they want, true or not. For example, there's no full explanation for why the theft-tracking was activated on a laptop that the school knew the particular student had in his possession. There is also a rumor that the kid wasn't using drugs, he was actually eating Mike and Ike's candies, which if it's true is going to be a definite story for the hall of embarrassingly stupid mistakes.

The Philly.com story also has some more background on the details of the kid and his history with (mis)using the equipment. According the news story, his family never paid a required $55 insurance fee before taking the laptop off campus, and the laptop in the question was a loaner unit because he had broken at least two laptops. It then went on to say that the theft tracking features were turned on because the school suspected the student had taken the computer home when he wasn't supposed to, in which case it would be considered "stolen."

...of course, it was just laziness and/or lack of procedure that would lead them to turn on the picture taking features, as the only thing needed to prove the laptop was removed from campus was that it "phoned home" to the school's server after hours from an IP that belonged to a home network.

No doubt the case is going to continue to contort and twist as more details leak out. The federal authorities are now involved to see if there are civil rights that were violated, and congressional representatives are trying to score points by calling for an investigation (really, with all the waste in government, is it necessary to waste time grandstanding on this when there's already a court system being involved?) Everyone is now in spin control mode, doing what they can to cover their own arses and justify missteps.

What is clear is that the school was engaged in unethical behavior. Had I had a hand in the program, I would have encouraged openly telling students that yes, there are systems in place to keep them from being stolen. Students are issued laptops with ID numbers that are registered, and they are responsible if said laptop is broken or disappears while in their care. It has been my experience that kids treat technology as if it's disposable if there's no consequence for destroying it; they need to have encouragement from parents and school alike to take care of the equipment.

I also would have made it perfectly clear with an updated technology policy what is expected from students and parents charged with the care of the laptops. That would include notifying them of the possibility of photos being uploaded remotely as well as what the laptops could be used for. How they could have been so negligent in this is truly mystifying.

But life is 20/20 hindsight and this district will have a black eye for a long, long time. They will be known for many years as a district that deviously spied on kids and because of that they will have a long and hard road to travel in rebuilding what trust they had among students, parents, and probably teachers. They'll also have an interesting time if they are found guilty in the courts and end up paying a large settlement to this kid's family and as a consequence raise taxes on residents in the district...