This link claims that students were completely “locked out” of the webcam, and that trying to break the “locks” is an expulsion offense. Ergo, it’s apparently vanishingly unlikely that the photo was taken by the student himself.
Which makes sense; why would the school give students access to webcams (and expose them to lawsuits that way) when they’re generally not used in schoolwork?
But it isn’t his, and I assume there’s legalese to the point that once you declare it missing or stolen, or take a loaner off school property without permission, you *stop *being authorized user.
Thank you, that’s what I thought. Now, what do you think about the fact that the Plaintiff is babbling all sorts of stuff to the press, but the defendant is saying nothing about the specifics of the case?
When the laptop is away from the school network, it checks in with the security server on a regular basis.
If the server tells the laptop that it’s flagged as stolen or missing, the laptop steps up a level of reporting to include screenshots, webcam shots, and full IP tracking data.
If this is the way it’s implimented, they’re most likely covered. About the only other thing they might have needed to do would be to file a police report that the laptop was stolen before activating the monitoring function.
Also, this from the video comments.
Bolding mine.
If this were the case here, removing the laptop from the school would automatically qualify it as stolen.
True. But that it was a loaner is speculation. What we know is that it was “a school-issue laptop”; whether it was the one issued to him (which everyone seems to have inferred before the school brought up the issue of loaners) or a loaner, has not been clearly established.
And if it was the one issued to him, on which he was supposed to do his schoolwork, it becomes absurdist to make an argument that he was not an authorized user.
My bad – I read the complaint wrong. I read it as saying that the photo was embedded in the laptop, but now I see it as saying that the webcam was embedded in the laptop. It does not allege where the picture was stored or how the district got it.
The kid and family can say whatever they want in public, though their lawyers might prefer otherwise. The district can’t say anything in public because they cannot violate the student’s privacy. I know they appear to have done so in other domains, but they would certainly do well to shut up entirely except during the legal proceedings. Any person or entity that has the obligation to protect someone’s privacy can’t do image management, and their lack of commentary means nothing about their guilt or innocence.
Provided the ‘insurance’ wasn’t paid. Apparently, therefore, if the insurance was paid, it could be brought home. Ah, and now they’re claiming there was a problem with the insurance. Doesn’t matter, really, they’re still bitching the kid out for something he did at home. Not for ‘stealing’ the laptop.
Pure speculation here, but imagine this…a laptop is reported stolen or missing by person X, and the ID number mistakenly refers to the wrong laptop. Said laptop’s webcam is activated and hilarity ensues…
It’s easily verifiable if the insurance was paid, so the truth will come out. Apparently, there’s a paypal system so the family and the school should both have access to an electronic record of the payment. If the family has proof that they did pay the fee, it seems likely that they would release that information to the press.
I think the family’s primary complaint is the violation of privacy - that the school allegedly took the picture while the student was in his home. I wonder what really happened at that meeting with the school administrator. As I mentioned upthread, it’s possible that once the school had a picture depitcting what they believed to be potentially dangerous behavior, they had a duty to disclose to the family, or they had to disclose for liability reasons.
If, as they say, he’s been taking the loaner home for a month due to his primary laptop being worked on, seems hard to justify activating the webcam regardless of the insurance.
The kid has been given a loaner and evn though they haven’t paid the insurance no one really cares. Since it is technically “stolen” the automatic system is doing the picture taking, logging, etc, but no one gives a shit because the kid needs to get his homework done and the missed insurance payment is just a formality like a library fine that will ultimately be paid. Of course, the parents have no idea that the school is taking a picture every day the kid brings the computer home. Meanwhile, the assistant principal, looking through the pictures taken by the camera sees the kid eating Mike and Ikes and being a complete moron decides its drugs and calls the parents in and makes the accusation. Hilarity ensues…
Maybe, but “automatically qualifies as stolen” I don’t think automatically justifies turning on such an invasive tool, when any right thinking person knows the 99.95% most likely situation is that the kid took it home.
I think this sounds like what might have happened, assuming the family is correct that he had been taking the same laptop home for a month. How did the school discover that the picture was taken (or pictures), and why did they look at it? Did they have an obligation to disclose the picture-taking to the family once they had discovered it? Was the Mike and Ike thing a side story? I am curious to know what really happened.
After a month of allowing him to take the “loaner” home (if that’s the case), I think it’s fair to say they set the precedent. To come up with an “insurance” or “security” fee now, after the fact, doesn’t smell right.
If he wasn’t supposed to take it home, why didn’t they just tell him up front (or did they)? The whole month thing is fishy.