Blake Robbins, a sophomore at Harriton High School outside of Philadelphia, is suing the Lower Merion School District, alleging his school issued him a laptop to take home and then used it to spy on him at through its built-in web cam.
Blake says his assistant vice principal, Lindy Matsko, confronted him with a photo taken by the web cam that showed Blake, in his home, holding candy. The school mistook the candy for pills, and Blake says they accused him of selling drugs.
The school district issued 2,300 laptop computers to students from the two high schools in their district to use in their homes. Lower Merion officials have admitted that they activated the web cams, without the knowledge of the students or parents, in an attempt to find 42 laptops that had gone missing.
The school district says they have stopped activating the web cams but too little, too late for many involved. The school district is now under investigation by local authorities and the FBI for possible violations of wiretapping and computer-use laws.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a brief in support of Robbins, alleging that the photo obtained through the web cam constitutes as an illegal search.
Not all parents are upset with the school, claiming that a lawsuit will just end up costing the school districts millions in court costs and legal fees, which will only hurt the students.
District spokesman Doug Young insists that the school district did not violate any policies because they activated the web cams, which were used as a tracking device, to locate the missing computers only. 16 year old Robbins, however, insists that that his laptop was not one of the computers that was reported missing.
Lindy Matsko, the administrator accused of confronting Robbins, says she has never spied on students, nor gave anyone else permission to do so. Robbins says the school still has yet to explain how they got the photo of him.
It is amazing that schools are finally able to make sure that each of their students has access to a computer, but with each advancement, new problems will arise, and this is a perfect example. The more of the world we are able to have at our finger tips, the easier it is for others to enter our lives. I just don’t think anyone thought it would ever be our children’s schools we had to worry about.
