Lower Merion Spied On Students Via Laptop — A federal class action lawsuit was filed Feb. 16 alleging that Lower Merion School District used the webcams in the laptops distributed to students to spy on them in their homes.
The case, Robbins v Lower Merion School District, is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The suit was filed by Michael E. and Holly S. Robbins on behalf of their son Blake, a student at Harriton High School, and the 1,800 or so other students at Harriton and Lower Merion, the district’s other high school.
The suit seeks damages caused by school district’s alleged invasion of privacy, theft of private information, and unlawful interception of electronic communications, and alleges the district broke numerous state and federal laws including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, along with the defendants’ Fourth Amendment Rights.
Lower Merion distributed the laptops to each high school student. Unbeknown to the students and the parents, the school district had the ability to remotely, and at anytime, activate the embedded webcam capturing the images in front of the camera.
The Robbins learned about this ability Nov. 9 when Harriton Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko told them that Blake was engaged in improper behavior in his home and presented as evidence a photograph taken via the webcam from the laptop the school gave Blake.
The suit doesn’t say what exactly Blake was doing but whatever it was it was not as bad as public officials stomping over duly passed laws.
The case is being handled by the law firm of Lamm Rubenstone LLC of Trevose, Pa. They can be reached at 1-215-638-9330. They were contacted and confirmed the filing of the suit.
