John P. Martin reports: A federal judge Friday permanently barred the Lower Merion School District from using webcams or other intrusive technology to secretly monitor students through their school-issued laptops. The five-page injunction signed by U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois also requires the suburban district to adopt transparent and expansive policies by September to…
Category: Youth & Schools
MD 1st to bar schools releasing tests to military
Kathleen Miller of the Associated Press reports: A first-of-its-kind law bars public high schools in Maryland from automatically sending student scores on a widely used military aptitude test to recruiters, a practice that critics say was giving the armed forces backdoor access to young people without their parents’ consent. This is really big in terms…
Spy-cam suit family drops plan for class-action damages
John P. Martin reports: The Penn Valley family whose lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District launched a firestorm over the district’s use of webcams to track student laptops has dropped its plans to seek class-action damages. In court filings made public Wednesday, the lawyer for Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins and his parents…
FBI will be allowed to view webcam images in Lower Merion case
The Associated Press reports that the judge in the Lower Merion School District webcam case says that the FBI can view computer evidence gathered through a lawsuit by the family of one student that accuses the district of electronically spying on students. Although a number of blogs I’ve read in the past few weeks seemed…