School Accused of Using Webcams to Spy on Students at Home

I found this story on KTLA News.

In Philadelphia, FBI is opening a criminal investigation on a school district for activating webcams at their students’ homes without any knowledge of this being done. The school had issued laptops for students to take home, and in doing so activated the webcams to spy on their students while not on school premises. The report said, “Families learned of the alleged webcam images when an assistant principal spoke to a student about inappropriate behavior at home.”

My first reaction to this crazy story was how inappropriate this was and how out of control our school systems are.

I cannot believe something like this could even happen. My sister in law got a laptop from her school when she was in high school, as did all the other students. They were allowed to take them home to do homework or whatever. I understand wanting to protect students from everything while they are in school, but this takes that to a whole new level. This principal and anyone else involved in this should be fired. I imagine they didn’t have a couple hundred people sitting around watching everyone’s laptops to make sure the students are safe or not doing anything illegal, but I’m curious why the principal was watching this certain kid. If he had some kind of message from the kid, such as the kid telling him that his parents beat him and told him to access his webcam for proof, then I could understand. But there is no reason for this student to have his privacy invaded, and the parents or other siblings have their privacy invaded as well. There is no logical explanation for something like this, and I don’t know how the principal is going to get himself out of this. These kids are supposed to feel safe at school, and knowing they have a school computer, they should feel it is ok and not be intimidated by it. I totally agree with the principal or other school teachers looking at the students’ laptop history to make sure they are not getting onto sites they shouldn’t be on, or making sure they are not threatening anyone or doing anything else illegal. But there is absolutely no reason for their webcams to be viewed, especially with no permission. This is a very low thing for a school to do, and I hope something is done to prevent this in the future. I just hope that this doesn’t ruin other schools from having the ability to give their students laptops to help with homework. Laptops, in my opinion, are a great thing for kids to have. Everything is using computers now days, and this teaches them responsibility and things they might need for their future careers.

Let’s just hope that this is stopped, and kids can continue to advance into the world of computers. Maybe they can remove webcams all together, there’s no reason for them anyways.