A photograph is worth a thousand words, especially in a court room, but with a variety of tools available for tracking a stolen computer, some wonder if remote imaging should be implemented with respect to children or teenagers.
The recent case in Pennsylvania of a student photographed by school officials while in his home reflects many of the fears expressed by parents in Franklin Lakes, Wyckoff, and Oakland. The “Conduct Away From School Grounds” policy that allows for the disciplining of student for behavior outside of school was a subject of great debate in the FLOW community. This could be behavior while on vacation, at a public event, or in their own home. The situation in the neighboring Pennsylvania takes those fears to their most extreme.
The case of the Pennsylvania student, Blake Robbins, who was photographed by school administrators via a webcam embedded in his school issued laptop has led to a federal lawsuit concerning his right to privacy in the United States. It is now a class action lawsuit confined to the local school district, but the case will certainly have national ramifications as the public learns of how wide spread the practice is throughout the nation.
While the Lower Merion School district has stated the technology is only used for recovery of a stolen laptop, that is apparently not true. The student in question was called to the principal’s office to address issues completely unrelated to illegal possession of the laptop. It has been implied in news reports that school administrators believed the student was involved with drugs and were concerned.
The idea of giving every high school and middle school student a laptop is not a subject many school districts need to debate. The Lower Merion District in Pennsylvania received numerous grants, but it is also a very affluent area with economic resources. Even so, there was great debate in the community on the merits of what is described as the 1:1 Project. Facebook hosts two competing sites that attracted members who were both for and against the initiative. Putting a STOP to the 1:1 Laptop Initiative, and Putting a START to the 1:1 Laptop Initiative. By the time the debate ended, those seeking to stop the 1:1 initiative had won the popularity contest on Facebook with almost twice as many members.
Schools are investing heavily in technology, and seeking to shrink the technology gap between students of different economic levels, and safeguarding that investment is an important factor. This has led to implementation of asset recovery applications that allow administrators to track a laptop – and take photographs from the embedded webcams. The vendor that provided the services to the Lower Merion School District which is the center of the recent case, has provided the same service to other school districts involving tens of thousands of students.
The ability to take photographs remotely is no secret, and the company LanRev, describes a similar incident in Pennsylvania’s Bensalem Township where photographs of the student thief helped recover a stolen laptop. LanRev has provided the same technology to Chicago public schools, schools in Michigan, and school districts in the United Kingdom.
LansRev, now owned by Absolute, is not the only vendor providing the service. CyberAngel Security Solutions, Stealth Signal, and XTool Laptop Tracker are just a few other major players in the industry of tracking stolen laptops. School districts around the country can choose from a variety of vendors, or off the shelf applications, which means the number of students with laptops featuring such asset recovery features is well beyond the tens of thousands serviced by LanRev.