Ripples created from Lower Merion Webcam spying

Updated 2/24, 5:50 p.m.: Fixed name of High School.
In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May.
The lawsuit filed against the Lower Merion School District last week has created a lot of questions in the educational community. In this case, it is alleged that the Vice Principal of Harriton High School used a picture, taken from the webcam of the 15-year-old student’s school-issued computer, to support the claim that the student had engaged in inappropriate behavior in his home. In order to take the picture the school remotely activated the student’s webcam.
“We think what they did was horrendous,” says Chris Alfano, the Science Leadership Academy‘s computer support specialist. Remotely activating a webcam is a security feature that was previously used by Harriton High School to recover stolen laptops. In the past 14 months it has been used about 42 times, and it has helped recover 28 laptops.

The Science Leadership Academy also provides its students with laptops, and the news of Harriton High School spying on a student has raised some eyebrows. “We had to quell some student concerns,” says Alfano. In fact, he doesn’t know what programs are needed to remotely activate a webcam.
When students are given school-issued laptops there is some paperwork to sign, however, there is nothing in Lower Merion’s paperwork that states the school can remotely access a student’s webcam at any time. SLA teachers may search a student’s computer if they believe the student has something on it they shouldn’t, but that is as far as they go, according to Alfano. “I think there is a line, and what they did crossed it,” he says.