Irate parents in Pa. say schools use 'peeping tom technology'

21.02.2010
The parents of a Pennsylvania high school student have asked a federal judge to bar school district personnel from switching on cameras in school-issued MacBook laptops, calling the security feature "peeping tom technology."

Federal officials have also stepped up their investigation of Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa., according to reports published Saturday. The said that the FBI was exploring whether district officials broke federal wiretapping and electronic surveillance laws, while the cited sources who said federal prosecutors have subpoenaed documents from school officials.

In their motion Friday, Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., asked U.S. District Court Judge Jan DuBois to issue a restraining order preventing the district from remotely activating the webcams on student notebooks. They also requested that the judge block the district from recalling the laptops from students, saying that they believe school officials will then wipe the MacBooks' hard drives to delete evidence of any camera activation.

Last week, the Robbins family sued the district, accusing it of and students' families using the MacBooks' cameras.

Two days after the lawsuit was filed, district officials said they had functionality of a feature designed to locate lost, missing or stolen laptops. However, that wasn't enough for the Robbins, who submitted their Friday motion on behalf of their 16-year-old son, Harriton High School student Blake Robbins.

"There can be no assurances that the School District will disable the use of the remote webcam or, once deactivated, make an internal decision to reactive the webcam," the motion argued.