School used spyware to watch students outside of school hours

Don't break any school rules - even when you're at home - because your teachers might be watching. Yes, spying on you, even in your own bedroom.
According to an article from PC World, after remotely activating a MacBook webcam, a Philadelphia-area school district took photographs of a student who was "engaging in improper behavior at home."
Yes, that's right. Improper behaviour "at home." As in, the school was actually spying on the high-school student in his own house.
The MacBooks were distributed as part of a school project, involving all 2,300 students in the school district. The webcams could be activated without the students' knowledge, supposedly as a "theft-prevention measure." The student in question was approached by a high-school official, who showed him the photographic evidence of his "improper behaviour."
Now the school board has a class-action lawsuit on its hands, which, according to the article from PC World, could even become a case of child pornography if the photographs turn out to be of a sexual nature.
In their lawsuit against the school board, the parents claim that "the indiscriminate remote activation of the webcams incorporated into each laptop was accomplished without the knowledge or consent of the Plaintiffs or the members of the class." Pretty scary stuff.
I can't imagine any of my own children's schools doing anything so sneaky and underhanded. The thought of anyone being able to secretly listen in and even watch as one of my kids hang out in their bedrooms is a very disturbing one. My kids have been lucky, I guess. None of their teachers or school principals are hypocrites, holding their students up to a higher standard of ethical behaviour than they do for themselves.
After acknowledging the fact that schools could use the Mac books' webcams as little spy cameras, the superintendent of the school district didn't offer any horrified apologies. Instead, he announced that the school board regrets "if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families."
Inconvenience? I wonder how he'd feel if some of the students in his district had been secretly spying on his bedroom? And then released pictures of anything they deemed to be "improper behaviour"?
The same thing should happen to the school officials involved in this shocking invasion of their students' privacy as would happen to those kids if they dared pulling a similar stunt. Yes, they should all be arrested and charged.



