“In most of the cases, technicians turned on the system after a student or staffer reported a laptop missing and turned it off when the machine was found, the investigators determined,” Martin reports. “But in at least five instances, school employees let the Web cams keep clicking for days or weeks after students found their missing laptops, according to the review. Those computers – programmed to snap a photo and capture a screen shot every 15 minutes when the machine was on – fired nearly 13,000 images back to the school district servers.”
“The data, given to The Inquirer on Monday by a school district lawyer, represents the most detailed account yet of how and when Lower Merion used the remote tracking system, a practice that has sparked a civil rights lawsuit, an FBI investigation and new federal legislation,” Martin reports. “The district’s attorney, Henry Hockeimer, declined to describe in detail any of the recovered Web cam photos, or identify the people in them or their surroundings. He said none appeared to show “salacious or inappropriate” images but said that in no way justified the use of the program. ‘The taking of these pictures without student consent in their homes was obviously wrong,’ Hockeimer said.”
Martin reports, “About 38,500 images – or almost two-thirds of the total number retrieved so far – came from six laptops that were reported missing from the Harriton High School gymnasium in September 2008. The tracking system continued to store images from those computers for nearly six months, until police recovered them and charged a suspect with theft in March 2009. The next biggest chunk of images stem from the five or so laptops where employees failed or forgot to turn off the tracking software even after the student recovered the computer.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Upon further reflection, I think I would let it in the house. I’d just put it up in the attic with the web-cam pointed at 11 x 17 glossies of something gleaned from goatse. Yeah…pry those images out of your mind’s eye… (Don’t google it. Seriously, don’t do it.)
Then, I’d buy my kid their own MacBook…and I’d have root.
How could this happen? Steve Jobs protects (controls) all of the innocent apple consumers from their own idiotic minds doesn’t he? Lol
A simple post-it note over the camera works wonders.
Perhaps that’s why the iPad has no camera. Stevo looking out for us kids. Hah
One 4 LETTER word describes it: SICK.
Two 4 letter words describe the solution: FIRE THEM…
Fire anyone and everyone who had anything to do with the misuse.
No one will want to dare do it again.
@@What’d you expect?
Poor, sad little Lieberal! You’re so tied in knots by irrational hatred of anyone who doesn’t think what they’re told to think, when they’re told to think it and in the manner they’re supposed to think it that you’ve nothing left but name calling.
Grow some nads, or forever be a leftist and “sit down, shut up and do as you’re told”.
Yes fire them. But……4 words.
Public. School. Teachers. Union.
This is why public schools suck so bad, you can’t fire the bad employees, you can’t force them to do anything. The teachers union has done a great job in providing job security, but a sh_t job in providing proper education for the students.
Some of the Schools admin/faculty should be charged with Voyeurism! If found guilty, they would be put on the Sex offender registry. Isn’t technology great!
This is one reason why I maintain Apple has a duty to provide an actual, physical sliding panel to cover the camera. None of this crappy software-controlled camera stuff. Make it so the damn thing has a physical cover. Hopefully, Apple will start adding this voluntarily, rather than being forced to by lawsuit, but either way it’s gotta be there.
One software package for end users is “Undercover”.
Just looked and they have a school district version. Could very well been this software.
http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/
There is a nefarious element to this. I can understand the pictures of the stolen laptop, but what of the “we forgot to turn off the system”. This sounds like crap and this should be investigated since basic civil rights have been trampled.
@Think – Paranoid delusions. Teachers (and staff, who are not part of the Union) get fired for illegal behavior regarding students. Unless they’re priests, they get reassigned.
Wrong lesson. If someone has to have the power (to recover lost laptops), a private organization won’t be any safer than a public one, as long as there is transparency and oversight. Power and responsibility need to be balanced.
There should be a way for parents to easily get access to log files, and know if any remote features are turned on. If the IT people complain about the difficulty, tell them they don’t get the power until they provide the tools for the parents.
Sorry, there is no excuse for violating someone’s privacy. I wonder if people would be ok with cameras in dressing rooms or restrooms?
I hope the most severe example is made of these people.