School district settles in webcam privacy case

See previous post on this story.

October 12, 2010
School district settles in webcam privacy case
by Edward Moyer
CNET

The Philadelphia school district that was sued for remotely and secretly taking pictures of students in their homes, using webcams on laptops issued to the students, has agreed to pay $610,000 to settle the lawsuits.

The Lower Merion School District's Board of School Directors said in a statement today that it will pay $175,000 to plaintiff Blake Robbins and $10,000 to plaintiff Jalil Hassan. An additional $425,000 will be paid out to cover the plaintiffs' legal fees.

"We recognize that in this case, a lengthy, costly trial would benefit no one," the statement said. "It would have been an unfair distraction for our students and staff, and it would have cost taxpayers additional dollars that are better devoted to education. We also wanted to be sensitive to the welfare of the student involved in the case, given the possible ramifications of what would have been a highly publicized trial."

Earlier this year, lawyers for high schooler Robbins and his family sued the district, saying the 15-year-old had been photographed without his knowledge. In a later motion, they said thousands of shots had been taken, including "pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping." They also said images of visited Web sites and of instant messaging exchanges had been recorded. Hassan also sued, and the incident sparked an investigation by local law enforcement agencies and the FBI.

The district admitted webcams had been activated but said the remote photo-taking function had been put in place as a way of tracking stolen laptops. A judge eventually ruled that there was no evidence that would justify criminal charges in the case.

In August, the district approved revised laptop policies that "strictly prohibit remote monitoring...of any kind, including activation of webcams, screenshots, audio, and video."

District loaned laptops to students, then used spyware to take pictures of them.

See update on this story.

Feds: No crime spying on kids via webcams
Prosecutors: No "criminal intent"
By Dan Gillmor

Federal prosecutors are showing uncommon sympathy for some Pennsylvania school officials who spied on students via webcams in their school-owned laptop computers: They've decided not to prosecute.

The reason? "For the government to prosecute a criminal case, it must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person charged acted with criminal intent," the U.S. Attorney's office said in a statement. "We have not found evidence that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent."

Let's leave aside the fact that people are charged all the time for criminal offenses despite having no idea they're committing crimes. And since when did ignorance of the law confer immunity?

Let's focus instead on the fundamental creepiness in what happened at the Lower Merion School District in suburban Philadelphia...