Continuing erosion of privacy

[unixronin]

Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania issued laptops to its high-school students and encouraged them to take them home.  Then it used the remotely-activatable webcams on the laptops to spy on the students and their families without their knowledge.  (Update:  Another story on it says webcam-equipped laptops were issued to 1,800 students at three high schools.)

A class-action lawsuit has been filed.  I hope the school administrators responsible go to jail for this.  There is absolutely no possible excuse whatsoever.  I won't be surprised if it turns out that some of the school administrators have their own private collections of the racier webcam shots, and if so, I predict they WILL be going to jail, on kiddie-porn charges.

Comments

[ithildae]

This is a great idea! What could possibly go wrong?

(Alternate translation: Hold my beer, and watch this!)

If racier video exists on ANY server collecting data, someone will be held responsible. Have you heard any of the rationale for why someone thought this would be a good idea?

[unixronin]

The official explanation is that it was a measure to recover lost or stolen laptops. However, since the laptop in the question was not lost or stolen, and since there are better tools for that purpose in any case, the explanation is a fairly obvious lie.