United States Lawsuits - Blake J. Robbins V. Lower Merion School District, Immersion V. Sony, Kahle V. Gonzales (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District is a class action suit (pending certification) brought on behalf of Blake J. Robbins and other students of Lower Merion School District (LMSD) in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, United States. The suit alleges that LMSD infringed upon the privacy rights of its students by remotely activating webcams in school-issued laptops while the laptops were being used by the students in their homes. The case was brought after Robbins was allegedly disciplined at school, with a photograph taken by the webcam used as evidence. The matter has since begun to be investigated by the FBI, and is being cited as a cautionary example of how modern technology can impact personal privacy. Among other information, the laptops collected pictures of students in their own homes, chat logs, and records of the websites they visited and sent this information to servers at the school. By the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, LMSD had issued laptops to approximately 2,300 high school students. As part of the One-to-one initiative, a program piloted in 2008 at Harriton High School and expanded in 2009 at Lower Merion High School, each student was provided his or her individual laptop computer for both in-school and at-home use. The school equipped the computers with LANrev's remote activation and tracking software including the now discontinued Theft Track, which allowed remote webcam activation. Two members of the school's student council had twice confronted the principal more than a year prior to the suit, concerned "that the school could covertly photograph students using the laptops' cameras." Students were particularly bothered by the webcam's flickering green activation light, which several students r... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=26245054