School district spying on kids at home

[Jen]

How irresponsible of the school. They couldn't see this lawsuit coming??? Morons.
BTW, I've heard of people locating stolen Macbooks by turning on their computers remotely through their Apple web accounts. The owner of one such Macbook was able take a photo of the jerk who stole their computer and the police used it to track the culprit down.  For every upside though, there seems to be a down side...which really stinks.

I remember that story.  Very funny and cool.  I wonder why this is ok but not the incident with the school?

I think the difference is intent. In one case an individual is nabbing a criminal...in another a school is violating the rights of its students by "watching them" without their knowledge. If they had been warned of this it would be a different matter I think.

[Rico]

Aside from the local catholic school I'm not aware of any public high schools in my area that supply laptops to their students. Is this a common practice elsewhere?

I wouldn't call it common at all, but some districts are doing it now.  They also sometimes provide discount methods for purchase.  Where my wife teaches they have groups of laptops for the kids to use and I think can be checked out of school, if needed.

[X]

To be fair, we don't know what they were warned. I'm guessing that the parents had to sign something to get them.

I'm also pretty sure that they didn't read anything past the part giving a free computer.

Having a kid in school currently, I can tell you that her school makes you sign off on a lot of thing and I have done so without fully reading on occasion.

Hell, I've had to give permission for field trips and then regive permission when the time leaving changed. And I was chaparoning it.

[Darkmolerman]

Yeah our contract said "don't pirate, nothing illegal, nothing adulty, etc" but nothing saying "we can spy"

[Bromptonboy]

2 of my nieces are in that school district.  I think that release statement they (the parents) signed was vague and didn't explicitly mention this type of monitoring.  The Legal Eagles (and vultures) are circling on this one.  

[Darkmolerman]

Yeah they said they could monitor in school things with a program called "dyknow" but you can't monitor outside of school

[Rico]

2 of my nieces are in that school district.  I think that release statement they (the parents) signed was vague and didn't explicitly mention this type of monitoring.  The Legal Eagles (and vultures) are circling on this one. 

They are already being sued.  They talked about this on the TWIT podcast today.  I can easily see jail time if this goes to court.

[Bromptonboy]

Well, like Heinlein said - TANSTAAFL [There ain't no such thing as a free lunch] - or laptop in this instance.

[sheldor]

How irresponsible of the school. They couldn't see this lawsuit coming??? Morons.
BTW, I've heard of people locating stolen Macbooks by turning on their computers remotely through their Apple web accounts. The owner of one such Macbook was able take a photo of the jerk who stole their computer and the police used it to track the culprit down.  For every upside though, there seems to be a down side...which really stinks.

I remember that story.  Very funny and cool.  I wonder why this is ok but not the incident with the school?

I think the difference is intent. In one case an individual is nabbing a criminal...in another a school is violating the rights of its students by "watching them" without their knowledge. If they had been warned of this it would be a different matter I think.

See, I thought they turned the cameras on for only the stolen laptops.  That may be completely legal given the precedent of the story you mentioned.

[Rico]

How irresponsible of the school. They couldn't see this lawsuit coming??? Morons.
BTW, I've heard of people locating stolen Macbooks by turning on their computers remotely through their Apple web accounts. The owner of one such Macbook was able take a photo of the jerk who stole their computer and the police used it to track the culprit down.  For every upside though, there seems to be a down side...which really stinks.

I remember that story.  Very funny and cool.  I wonder why this is ok but not the incident with the school?

I think the difference is intent. In one case an individual is nabbing a criminal...in another a school is violating the rights of its students by "watching them" without their knowledge. If they had been warned of this it would be a different matter I think.

See, I thought they turned the cameras on for only the stolen laptops.  That may be completely legal given the precedent of the story you mentioned.

There were no stolen laptops that I have read of.  And there is nothing "legal" about invasion of privacy - especially given minors were involved.  Even with a school laptop.  The people and district that did this are in a big amount of trouble.

[X]

How irresponsible of the school. They couldn't see this lawsuit coming??? Morons.
BTW, I've heard of people locating stolen Macbooks by turning on their computers remotely through their Apple web accounts. The owner of one such Macbook was able take a photo of the jerk who stole their computer and the police used it to track the culprit down.  For every upside though, there seems to be a down side...which really stinks.

I remember that story.  Very funny and cool.  I wonder why this is ok but not the incident with the school?

I think the difference is intent. In one case an individual is nabbing a criminal...in another a school is violating the rights of its students by "watching them" without their knowledge. If they had been warned of this it would be a different matter I think.

See, I thought they turned the cameras on for only the stolen laptops.  That may be completely legal given the precedent of the story you mentioned.

There were no stolen laptops that I have read of.  And there is nothing "legal" about invasion of privacy - especially given minors were involved.  Even with a school laptop.  The people and district that did this are in a big amount of trouble.

I don't think it will go to court and if it does, I'm betting the parents signed something that will bite the parents in the ass for not reading.

[Rico]

We'll see.  I really doubt that anything signed said, "We can spy on your kids at anytime.  Even when they are not at school and half naked in their rooms at home."

[sheldor]

Here's that referenced story...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/mac-thief-caught-on-webcam/2008/05/12/1210444306538.html

I don't know.  It sounds like the school used the webcams on all laptops - in which case they are in big trouble.  If they can show they did this for only the missing/stolen laptops I find it hard to believe it would matter if the thieves were minors.

[X]

We'll see.  I really doubt that anything signed said, "We can spy on your kids at anytime.  Even when they are not at school and half naked in their rooms at home."

All they had to do was sign something that says the school has monitoring devices in the computer and will use them at their discretion.

[sheldor]

Ummmm..I think you mean "discretion"