Tech in School – Are your Kids Protected?
Technology has quickly become a staple in our educational systems. You would have a hard time finding a classroom in any school across the US that does not have a computer either in each classroom or a computer lab for students to access, regardless if it is high school or elementary. Schools are even handing out laptops and netbooks to their students and the hardbound textbooks are becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs. But is all of this a good thing?
We can spend hours and hours debating the relevancy and ramifications of tech in our classrooms, but the questions will still remain! And, thanks to one school district, even more questions are hitting the surface — this time about students’ rights and privacy!
Last week a story broke about a school district in Philadelphia reportedly spying on high school students via the built-in cameras on their school-provided laptops while the students had the laptops at home!
The alleged spying was discovered when the school disciplined a student for “improper behavior in his home.” As evidence the Vice Principal showed a photo of the student in his home taken by the school-provided laptop webcam. Students had complained to the school tech department that the camera light on his MacBook would randomly turn on (the little green light next to the webcam shows when the built in webcam has been activated), but the IT department dismissed the problem saying that programs accessing the camera must have been in use or that it was a glitch.
Now, with looming lawsuits and parent complaints, the school is admitting that they do in fact have access to the webcams on those school-provided laptops and that it is set-up as a “security feature” to track lost or stolen laptops. They also claim that the “security feature’s capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator’s screen.” Personally, I have a MacBook laptop and I’m not buying that excuse!
Regardless of how many times (rumored to be 42) the webcams were accessed or for what reasons, the Lower Merion School District has now found itself in a heap of trouble as the FBI begins to investigate possible computer-privacy law violations.
So, what are your feelings on this? Do you support the school and their right to “check-in” on the use of the school-provided laptops? Or do you believe the students’ rights were abused?
No matter how this case turns out, the provision of school-provided technology and this situation has definitely brought to light some serious questions regarding the rights of the school, the rights of the students, and ethics!
I’d love to hear your thoughts!!!
