Keyonna Summers reports: Names, addresses, phone numbers and birth dates of Brevard’s nearly 73,000 public school students are available to virtually anyone who asks through a simple public records request. So far, only the military, colleges and research institutions have asked, but school board members worry about who else might request the data. They want…
Category: Youth & Schools
Teaching our children to protect their privacy and rights
In response to my blog post earlier today about schools searching students’ cellphones for evidence of violations of law, a reader e-mailed me: Time to teach them early about infosec practices like keeping your phone encrypted and always password-locked. And if the timeout hasn’t expired yet when you have to hand it over, quickly reboot…
VA: School officials can search cellphone for evidence of “sexting” or “cyberbullying”
From FourthAmendment.com: The Virginia AG issues an opinion authorizing school officials to search student belongings and cellphones on reasonable suspicion of a violation of law or a school regulation for “sexting” or “cyberbullying.” VA A.G. Op. 10-150 (November 24, 2010)*: Accordingly, searches of a student’s belongings–including an examination of the messages found on a cell phone…
The Supreme Court on School Interrogations and Parental (Dis)empowerment
Craig Livermore writes: The Supreme Court has in the past several weeks granted certiorari in two cases involving the rights of juveniles in police interrogations in the school setting. In Greene v. Camreta, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the interrogation of a juvenile by police authorities in the school setting in the absence…