Following a civil suit against the Lower Merion School District, the school has deactivated a tracking device that allowed the administration of the school to observe the activities of as many as eighteen hundred students. The students of Lower Merion were all provided with a lap top by the school which had a function on it that allowed the administration to activate their webcams without any given notification.
The illegal spying activities of the school came to notice when a student was told off by an assistant principal for improper behavior in November last year. To prove the allegations the principal provided the student with a picture that had been taken by one of the webcams on the school provided lap top. This incident sparked a controversy and a case was finally filed last week against Lower Merion.
The people responsible for this computer fraud have acknowledged their mistake and have issued a statement which reassures the student body and the parents of the students that the tracking device will not be activated in the future without taking permission from the related parties. It also states that the tracking device on the laptops was used for the sole purpose of locating lost or stolen laptops to minimize inconvenience. The program that Lower Merion had adopted to distribute laptops to over eighteen hundred students had been funded partially by grants which had been acquired over the past few years from the state and federal government.
This activity was in violation of a total of four acts mainly related to privacy and the fourth amendment of the constitution of the United States of America. Lets hope that those responsible learn a valuable lesson that they cannot just go and peep into peoples homes without consent.
Lower Merion School District
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