McGinley has admitted that students and parents were not told of the computer tracking feature or its remote camera activation capability. "There was no explicit notification that the laptop contained the security software," he said in his letter of Friday. "This notice should have been given and we regret that was not done."

In a Q&A section of the letter, McGinley said that students could mask the camera lens on their MacBooks if they wished. "There is no requirement that a student use the camera's standard webcam feature," he said. Some media reports have quoted high school students in the district as saying they had taken to slapping Post-It notes over the camera lens.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld . Follow Gregg on Twitter ator subscribe to. His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Privacy Knowledge Center.