When this story first broke (background here) the School District was adamant about the number of times they activated the web cam. Once would have been one time too many for me, but they kept repeating the number 42.
District spokesman Doug Young acknowledged yesterday that officials had remotely activated computer webcams 42 times, but only in an attempt to recover missing or stolen laptops, and never to spy on students. He said families had not been notified about the possibility that the cameras on the 2,300 laptops could be activated in their homes without their permission.
Looks like that number was on the low end.
The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats, says a new motion filed in a suit against the district.
More than once, the motion asserts, a laptop camera took photos of Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins as he slept in his bed.
And according to the emails published in the article it appears certain adults were enjoying this show more than the Real Housewives of New Jersey.
Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into “a little LMSD soap opera,” a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.
“I know, I love it,” she is quoted as having replied.
Cafiero has taken the fifth.
The Lower Merion School District today acknowledged that investigators reviewing its controversial laptop tracking program have recovered “a substantial number of webcam photos” and that they expect to soon start notifying parents whose children were photographed.
start notifying parents whose children were photographed
I’m guessing this story is about to get bigger, and heads are going to roll… as they should.