School District Snapped 56,000 Images From Student's Laptop Webcams
2 min readBy Tim Hallman
The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania reportedly activated student webcams and snapped over 56,000 images that included photos of students, pictures inside their homes, online chats and copies of the programs or files running on their screens, according to District Investigators.
The school says it employed the technology to recover laptops that were lost or stolen, but according to officials many of the webcams continued snapping images every 15 minutes long after many of the laptops were recovered, and according to attorney Mark Haltzman many of the photos were taken from laptops that were never reported lost or stolen.
Many parents are concerned about what type of images were relayed from the laptops to the school, and who has access to the images. According to officials some of the children were photographed while sleeping in bed and “partially dressed”. Some parents are now suing, and many others are requesting that the images of their children be given to them for review.
This story has grabbed national attention and has led to a slew of new privacy questions, an FBI investigation and possible legislation.
Last month a Judge signed an injunction barring the District from employing this technology in the future, and Yesterday a Federal Judge ordered the School District to share the information with a consultant investigating for the family suing.
See below for more articles on the matter.
‘Spycam’ judge orders district to share evidence
Lower Merion report: Web cams snapped 56,000 images
School District Allegedly Snapped Thousands of Student Webcam Spy Pics
I can see the school trying to find them if they were stolen but this still seems like a major invasion of privacy. I wonder if the kids and parent knew that the school could even do that.