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Blake J. Robbins v. Lower Merion School District is a class action lawsuit (pending certification), brought on behalf of students of the Lower Merion School District (LMSD) in Pennsylvania.

The suit alleges that, in what has been termed the "Webcamgate" scandal, the school secretly spied on the students while they were in the privacy of their own homes. School authorities allegedly surreptitiously activated webcams remotely, which were installed in school-issued laptops that the students were using at home. After the suit was brought, the district revealed that it had secretly activated webcams that had produced more than 58,000 images. The suit charges that the school district therefore infringed on the privacy rights of its students.

The lawsuit was filed after high school sophomore Blake Robbins was disciplined at school for his behavior in his home. The evidence for the discipline was a photograph secretly taken by the school via the webcam on his school-issued laptop. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has initiated an investigation of the matter, and is being cited as a cautionary example of how modern technology can impact personal privacy. The laptops were used by the school to collect pictures of students in their own homes, chat logs, and records of the websites they visited, and the information was sent to servers at the school. In a widely published photograph, Robbins had been photographed in his bed.

In July 2010, a second Lower Merion graduate filed a similar second suit, regarding 1,000+ images that were surreptitiously taken by the school via his computer, including shots of him in his bedroom. The district deactivated its surveillance of the student in February 2010, after the first lawsuit was filed, and informed the student of the existence of the photographs five months later.

Technical background

At the beginning of the 2009–10 school year, LMSD, in a suburb of Philadelphia—Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, in the United States—issued Apple MacBook laptops to all of its 2,300 high school students. As part of the One-to-one initiative, a program piloted in 2008 at Harriton High School and expanded in 2009 at Lower Merion High School, each student was provided his or her individual laptop computer for both in-school and at-home use. The school equipped the computers with LANrev's remote activation and tracking software, including the now-discontinued "TheftTrak", which allowed remote webcam activation. That, in turn, allowed school officials to secretly take photos and take screen shots. The system which snapped and stored a new photo every 15 minutes when the laptops were on.

Two members of the school's student council had twice confronted the principal more than a year prior to the suit, concerned "that the school could covertly photograph students using the laptops' cameras." Students were particularly bothered by the webcam's flickering green activation light, which several students reported would periodically turn on when the camera wasn't in use. School officials denied that it was anything but a technical glitch, and offered to have the laptops looked at if students were concerned. In neither the promotion of the laptop program nor the individual contracts that students signed did the school make mention of the computer's remote activation features.

Michael Perbix, network technician within the Lower Merion school district, can be seen enthusiastically describing the spying capabilities of the LANrev software on a LANRev promotional video. At time mark 35:47, Perbix states that when "you're controlling someone's machine, you don't want them to know what you're doing." Perbix had previously praised Theft Track in a YouTube video that he produced, saying:

It's an excellent feature. Yes, we have used it, and yes, it has gleaned some results for us. But it, in and of itself, is just a fantastic feature for trying to—especially when you're in a school environment and you have a lot of laptops and you're worried about, you know, laptops getting up and missing. I've actually had some laptops we thought were stolen which actually were still in a classroom, because they were misplaced, and by the time we found out they were back, I had to turn the tracking off. And I had, you know, a good twenty snapshots of the teacher and students using the machines in the classroom.

Perbix maintains a personal blog in which he discusses computer oversight techniques, including how to cloak remote monitoring so it is invisible to the user.

LANrev's new owner, Absolute Software, staunchly denounced the use of its software for any illegal purpose, emphasizing that theft-recovery should be left to law enforcement professionals. The company further denied any knowledge of or complicity in either Perbix's or the school district's actions. Absolute stated that the next update of LANrev, which would ship in the next several weeks, would permanently disable Theft Track.

While remote activation of the webcam is currently deactivated by court agreement, the LANrev software has not yet been removed. In addition to webcam surveillance, LANrev allowed school officials to take snapshots of instant messages, web browsing, music playlists, and written compositions, all of which can still be monitored and archived via screen capture. Further, LANrev can be programmed to automatically capture webcam pictures and screen captures and store them on the hard disk for later retrieval in areas of the computer's memory that are not accessible by the student, and can be deleted remotely. Because of these capabilities, removal of the hard drive is recommended for preserving forensic evidence.

Robbins lawsuit

The lawsuit was brought on February 11, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It was filed on behalf of Blake J. Robbins, and other students of the school district, alleges that school-issued MacBooks with built-in webcams were used by school staff to invade the students' privacy by remotely activating the laptop cameras while the students were off school property.

Robbins, a sophomore at Harriton High School, was called into his Assistant Principal's office, shown a photograph taken on the webcam of his school-issued laptop in his bedroom in his Penn Valley home as what the Assistant Principal thought was "proof", and disciplined for "improper behavior". According to the Philadelphia Daily News, "the lawsuit does not specify why the photograph was objectionable."

Robbins said that Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko told him that the school district was able at any time to activate the webcam remotely in a student's laptop, and view and capture whatever image was visible without the knowledge or consent of anyone in its line of sight. Witold Walczak, the Legal Director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (not a party in the lawsuit), commented: "This is fodder for child porn."

The plaintiffs alleged that "many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions", including "various stages of undress." In a widely published photograph, Robbins was shown sleeping in his bed. His attorney said that the hundreds of photos taken of the 15-year-old also included him standing shirtless.

The lawsuit claims that the district's use of the webcams violates the Constitution's guarantees of privacy of the students and their families and friends at home, as well as Pennsylvania common law and Section 1983 of the U.S. Civil Rights Act. It also accused officials of violating electronic communications laws (the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Stored Communications Act, and the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act) by spying through "indiscriminate use of an ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop".

The Philadelphia Inquirer, in an editorial, opined that the school's decision to use the remote-camera feature was "misguided", and that "Lower Merion families had every right to be shocked. As an antitheft strategy, the webcam tracking was overkill - and not even as useful as other means. Then failing to disclose the webcam use was a huge gaffe, compounded by a lack of policies safeguarding students' privacy."

Ongoing events

Initial Response

On February 18, 2010, the school district posted a reply on its website stating that "The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen," and that it "has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen, or missing laptop." "his includes tracking down a loaner computer that, against regulations, might be taken off campus." The complaint does not state whether Robbins' laptop had been reported stolen, and district spokesman Doug Young said the district cannot disclose that fact. He said the district never violated its policy of only using the remote-activation software to find missing laptops. "Infer what you want," Young said.

On February 20, 2010, the plaintiffs' lead lawyer, Mark S. Haltzman of Lamm Rubenstone LLC, told msnbc Live that the student had been eating "Mike and Ike" candy in front of the laptop assigned to him, in his own home. The attorney said that the school administrator had accused the student of taking illegal pills, after seeing him eating the candy in a webcam image. Haltzman said that his client's laptop had not been reported stolen or lost. The lawyer raised questions about who is deciding when to activate the webcam, and for what reasons. Henry E. Hockeimer, Jr., and four Ballard Spahr attorneys represent the district.

In a statement to the press on February 24, 2010, Blake emphasized that the case was neither about his vice principal's misconduct nor his own, but about the undisclosed spying capabilities which the district covertly maintained.

The school district denied that the school administrator had ever used a photo taken by a school-issued laptop to discipline a student. The administrator herself repeated this statement in video distributed to national media on February 24, 2010.

Admissions, further instances, and changes in policy

The district later admitted that its monitoring system was flawed. The district also admitted that the remote surveillance was activated and left running for two weeks, even though school officials knew it was at Robbins' home.

In February the district suspended, by putting on paid administrative leave, its two staffers who were authorized to activate the remote monitoring, information systems coordinator Carol Cafiero and technician Michael Perbix. It also revealed that the secretly activated webcams had produced more than 58,000 images, and acknowledged that more than half the images were created after missing laptops were recovered. While asserting that it did not have any evidence that individual students had been specifically targeted, the district issued a statement acknowledging that "mistakes were made". In addition, the school later said they it should have informed students and parents about the secret surveillance software.

Following the initiation of the lawsuit and a review by the district of privacy policies, the district disabled the school's ability to remotely activate the webcam.

In June and July 2010, dozens of other students were notified that they too had been secretly photographed by school authorities via their webcams. The District said that 58,000 photos had been taken. The students were invited to privately review the photos that had been taken, and a federal judge is overseeing the review process. In a number of cases, the school had no answer as to who ordered the surreptitious webcam activation, or why.

Months after the suit was filed, the district adopted new policies that now require the district to obtain a student's permission before the school activates the monitoring software. The district also now promises never to look at a student's laptop files unless the laptop has been returned to the school, there is "reasonable suspicion" that the student is violating law, school rules, or district policies, or a student has signed a consent form. Following criticism of the district's training requirements and computer responsibility standards, it is considering new written policies in those areas as well. On July 19, 2010, a proposal was introduced at a district meeting to adopt a new written policy banning all laptop webcam surveillance by school officials.

Motions in case

At a hearing that week, Haltzman sought an injunction to prevent the school from reactivating the security feature. The school district avoided it by voluntarily consenting to comply. In addition, the court issued a gag order, preventing the district from discussing the case without first clearing its communications with the plaintiff's attorney.

In support of the motion for injunction, the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs. Citing relevant case law regarding privacy and unconstitutional searches, the brief stated: "While the act of placing the camera inside students’ laptops may not implicate the Fourth Amendment, once the camera is used a search has occurred that, absent a warrant or consent, violates the Fourth Amendment" (see United States v. Karo).

The Robbins class-action lawsuit argues for class status on the grounds that individual compensation may be small, and therefore multiple parties will need to share in covering the legal fees.

The District and its insurance company, Graphic Arts Mutual Insurance Company, filed claims against each other in federal court over who should pay the District's related bills (it had been billed more than $780,000 by Ballard Spahr and its computer consultant by May 2010) and any potential settlements. The insurance company contended that none of Robbins' claims amounted to "personal injury", as defined in the district's $1 million liability coverage. The District and the insurance company also accused each other of breaching its contract. The District was also paying the aggregate $200,000 salary of its two employes that it had suspended.

Loaner claim

The school district suggested that Blake was in possession of a loaner laptop, because he had not paid a $55 insurance fee which would have permitted him to use one of the regular computers. In a 2009 letter to parents, Harriton principal Steven R. Kline said that "no uninsured laptops are permitted off campus," and said that students who had not paid the insurance fee could use one of the loaners. Asked if Robbins took a loaner computer home without authorization, Young declined to comment. The Philadelphia Inquirer speculated that, if the loaner was considered missing, the circumstances might have prompted the district to activate the webcam. Haltzman denied that Blake was ever notified that his computer use was a problem, and stated that Blake had taken a computer home "every single day" for a month.

Opposition to initial lawsuit

In opposition to the lawsuit, a group of parents formed the Lower Merion Parents committee. The group's concerns were that the Robbins lawsuit will be costly, attract undue attention to the district while harming its civic tone and distracting from its educational mission, and take too long to resolve. Particular attention was given to the fact that any payment for the members of the class in the class action suit would effectively come from the district's taxpayer. Lower Merion Parents did not, however, oppose a full investigation of the district's technological capabilities and of any abuses the district committed.

On March 2, 150 parents met in Narberth, Pennsylvania, to discuss the issues. Robbins' attorney Mark Haltzman requested an opportunity to speak to the group, but was denied. A founder of Lower Merion Parents said the meeting focused on whether the parents wanted the Robbins family to represent them, how to lift the court's "gag order" agreement that district officials and school board members not talk about the case without first consulting the Robbinses and their lawyer, and how to learn what actually happened with the laptops and webcams. One option opposing parents have is to file a motion to intervene, which is an agreement to be parties in the case, but with different interests than the plaintiff. A similar group called Parents in Support of the Lower Merion School District collected more than 750 signatures by March 3 in an online petition.

FBI investigation

The FBI is investigating whether laws were violated by school administrators and technology staffers as they monitored the webcam images without alerting the students.

U.S. Attorney and Montgomery County District Attorney investigations

The U.S. Attorney's Office also initiated a probe into the matter. The Montgomery County District Attorney also launched an investigation to see if any criminal laws were broken.

Hasan lawsuit

In July 2010, a second Lower Merion student and his mother filed a civil suit for invasion of privacy against the school district over the school's use of the LANRev software, without the high school student's knowledge or consent. Lower Merion school administrators informed the Hasans by letter that Jalil had been secretly monitored by the webcam on his school-issued laptop for two months. Haltzman is also representing the Hasans.

Over 1,000 images were surreptitiously taken by the computer—consisting of 469 webcam photographs, and 543 screen shots, including shots of him in his bedroom in his Ardmore, Pennsylvania, home, and of other family members and friends. A laptop that Jalil had misplaced at the school for three days in December 2009 had the surveillance software covertly activated by the school for nearly two months following its recovery. It was only deactivated in February 2010, after the first lawsuit was filed. The school district did not inform Hasan and his family of this until July 8, 2010, when a lawyer for the school district notified them of the existence of the photographs.

"When I saw these pictures, it really freaked me out," said Jalil Hasan. His mother said: "when I'm looking at these pictures, and I'm looking at these snapshots, I'm feeling, 'Where did I send my child?'"

References

1. ^ "School district accused of spying on kids via laptop webcams". USA Today. February 18, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2010.
2. ^ William Bender (July 28, 2010). "2nd Lower Merion student sues over 'spycam'". Philadelphia Daily News. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
3. ^ Daniel Nasaw. "US school district spied on students through webcams, court told". The Guardian. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
4. ^ Holmes, Kristin E. (July 28, 2010). "Second suit over Lower Merion webcam snooping". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
5. ^ "School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home". Boing Boing. February 17, 2010. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
6. "Lawsuit: PA School District Using School-Issued Laptop Webcams to Spy on Students". America's Right website. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
7. ^ Wood, Sam (July 27, 2010). "A lawyer in the Lower Merion webcam case wants to be paid now". Philadelphia Daily News. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
8. ^ "Official: FBI probing Pa. school webcam spy case". The Washington Post. February 19, 2010. Retrieved February 20, 2010.
9. Martin, John P. (April 16, 2010). "Lower Merion schools". philly.com. Retrieved April 16, 2010.
10. ^ Holmes, Kristin E. (July 28, 2010). "Second suit over Lower Merion webcam snooping". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
11. ^ Albanesius, Chloe. "Another Lawsuit Filed Over School Webcam Spying". PCMag.com. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
12. ^ "School Laptop camera snapped away in one classroom". The Philadelphia Inquirer. February 22, 2010. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
13. ^ "LANrev to lose Theft Track feature following Pa. school spying allegations". Blogs.techrepublic.com.com. February 23, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
14. LMSD Staff List, http://www.lmsd.org/sections/about/depart/tech/default.php?t=departments&p=depart_tech_techstaff
15. http://webcast.macenterprise.org/2008Webcasts/2008-05-20-LANrev-Webcast.zip
16. The Spy at Harrington High http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html
17. "FBI, US Attorney Probing Penn. School District's Computer Spying". Democracynow.org. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
18. Turning off the Lightspeed LsSaAlerter in OSX http://bestsinceslicedbread.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html
19. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9160278/Software_maker_blasts_vigilantism_in_Pa._school_spying_case?taxonomyId=12
20. School spying: infected laptops mandatory, jailbreaking grounds for expulsion http://boingboing.net/2010/02/22/school-spying-infect.html
21. "Stryde Hax: The Spy at Harriton High". Strydehax.blogspot.com. February 21, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
22. ^ http://craphound.com/robbins17.pdf
23. ^ Holmes, Kristin E. (July 19, 2010). "Lower Merion school board to consider webcam policy". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
24. "Lower Merion School District sued for cyber spying on students". Philadelphia Daily News. February 18, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2010.
25. Leonard, Tom (February 18, 2010). "School 'spied on pupils at home through webcams'". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved February 19, 2010.
26. Daniel Nasaw in Washington. "US school district spied on students through webcams, court told | World news | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
27. "Official: FBI Probing Pa. School Webcam Spy Case", CBS3.com, February 20, 2010
28. "LMSD response to invasion of privacy allegation". Lower Merion School District website. February 18, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2010.
29. "Update from Dr. McGinley regarding high school student laptop security". Lower Merion School District website. February 19, 2010. Retrieved February 24, 2010.
30. Holmes, Kristin E. (July 30, 2010). "No word after lawyers meet in Lower Merion webcam case". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
31. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9162940/_Spygate_teenager_demands_webcam_pix_from_Pa._school?taxonomyId=15
32. "Update from Dr. McGinley regarding high school student laptop security". Lower Merion School District website. February 19, 2010. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
33. "Principal Accused in "WebcamGate": I'm No Spy". NBC News. February 24, 2010. Retrieved February 24, 2010.
34. ^ http://www.lmsd.org/documents/laptops/100719_p134.pdf
35. Holmes, Kristin E. (July 20, 2010). "Lower Merion district would ban all webcam surveillance". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
36. ^ Tanfani, Joseph (February 22, 2010). "Judge: School officials must clear "webcamgate" comments with lawyers". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
37. Lattanzio, Vince (February 20, 2010). "WebcamGate Teen: "I Hope They're Not Watching Me"". WCAV. Retrieved February 20, 2010.
38. Rivero, Claudia; Ryan, Bruce (February 20, 2010). "WebcamGate Family's Attorney: "Who Has Access"". WCAU. Retrieved February 20, 2010.
39. http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/Robbinsfinal.pdf
40. King, Larry (February 25, 2010). "Laptop family is no stranger to legal disputes". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
41. Fitzgerald, Thomas (February 22, 2010). "Laptop camera snapped away in one classroom". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
42. Stringer, David (February 25, 2010). "Laptop family is no stranger to legal disputes". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
43. William Bender (March 3, 2010). "Parents meet to slam Lower Merion spy-cam suit". Philadelphia Daily News. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
44. Stringer, David (March 3, 2010). "L. Merion parents discuss a response in laptop suit". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
46. "2nd Pa. student files suit alleging laptop spying". Yahoo! News. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
47. Lattanzio, Vince (July 28, 2010). "2nd Lawsuit Filed Over WebcamGate". NBC Philadelphia. Retrieved August 11, 2010.

External links

• Text of the class-action civil suit
• Justia.com's index of court documents
• LMSD responses to invasion of privacy allegation
• Pennsylvania ACLU's amicus brief, friend of the court brief citing privacy case law in favor of Robbins
• The Spy at Harriton High, detailed technical discussion from the Stryde Hax blog
• Michael Perbix of LMSD discussing the use of LANrev (laptop tracking software)
• Best Since Sliced Bread, personal tech blog of LMSD IT director, Michael Perbix
• LMSD Parents, community group opposed to an expensive lawsuit
• School district report

• Civil law
• United States lawsuits
• Privacy law
• Surveillance scandals
• Pennsylvania law
• Computer law
• Privacy of telecommunications
• Class action lawsuits