High school students and parents have filed a class-action lawsuit against their own high school in Pennsylvania recently. Their reason: the school has allegedly used webcams from laptops given to the students to spy on them while at home. Apparently, the Assistant Principle, Lindy Matsko, had reprimanded one of the students Blake J. Robbins for inappropriate behavior within his own home, and had cited a photo from the webcam as evidence. The boys father then confirmed with the school that they had access using the remote desktop application to capture any images that may be visible from the webcam at any time. Parents have become outraged by this as no one had been informed that the issued computers had these capabilities, or more so, that they would be used in this manner. If all of this is true then the school district, its board members, and its superintendent are facing a multitude of charges such as invasions of privacy, violations of the Civil Rights Act, interception of electronic communications under the ECPA, violations of the Stored Communications Act, theft of intellectual property under the CFAA, and violations of the Pennsylvania wiretapping and electronic surveillance act.
This action by the school administration has now raised several questions I feel are important. First off, given these devices have the capabilities to be accessed via remote desktop and this type of sensitive data can be collected, why were parents not advised? Second, irregardless of whether parents are or are not advised of this information, why should the school still have the ability granted to it to at any time access the computers via remote desktop without any sort of warning or notice? Not only that, but it would make more sense that if the remote desktop can be useful for students, then why not make it only available upon request from the student? This eliminates any possibility that the school could at any time spy on their own students but still allows students to request help when necessary. Better yet, perhaps parents should be present at any time the remote desktop application is in use to ensure protection of their children.
Aside from the action by the school of invading the privacy of its students in their own homes as well as for their lack of responsibility to inform the parents about the devices they have provided to their children, in what realm of life is a school given the right to discipline a student for their behavior outside of school, and even more so in their own home? To what extent are our schools capable of going to when it comes to the discipline and interference of the lives this country’s children? Our schools exist only to teach children what they need to know in order to function and sustain themselves in today’s world. Schools main concern should be to educate students not discipline them for actions they have made unless done so on any school premise; parents are responsible for the discipline of children in their own home.
Our lives have become so inundated with the mix of work, education , and social status that one persons actions in one area are reflected across the board. Regardless of the “inappropriate behavior” within this kids home, the discipline should not have come from anyone other than legal guardians within the home. This type action made by the school has not only been displayed here but is also displayed by employers as well as our own government. Educators, employers, and the government feel as if it is their duty to babysit members of the society by instilling disciplinary action based off of an individuals action elsewhere. Many employers will discipline their employees for actions made outside of work such as a particular blog post, information posted on social networking page, or perhaps even for a particular secondary job the employee may have. Students can be kicked off of school teams for being seen at a party or even being known to be a smoker (although it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18). And the government likes to dictate how we can gamble or what websites we can visit. And all of these groups say that the actions performed by an individual reflect their image. While I tend to agree that certain actions may have a large negative impact against these groups, I also feel that people need to stop, take a moment, and think about whats going on here. People need to stop mixing everything together and treat each as a separate entity unless otherwise necessary. Employers, schools, and Government need to look at a lot of these disciplinary actions and realize that a number of them are going overboard, they need to respect their own place and role in society and stop acting as if they are above everything else.
As you can tell privacy and the respect of maintaining your right and role in society is my main concern in this case. While the students and parents should have been well informed about the devices given to them, they were not. The actions made by the school administration have been made and cannot be undone, however, they can be prevented in the future. The only action made that can and probably will continue is the discipline of what has been deemed “inappropriate behavior” within the students home. This type of discipline is something that America needs to take a closer look at as it is seen far more often than not, and not just in schools.
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