School sued over cameras in locker rooms

[Merijeek]

*Originally posted by Gorgon Heap *
**The stupidity by the administration is one thing: school administrations are frequently filled with thoughtless, disrespectful assholes.

The fact that the security firm seemed to have no problem doing this without considering either legal consequences or just the rightness of the act is horrific.

And making images accessible on the internet? Yeah. Good thinking. Nobody could possibly use that for anything.

:rolleyes: **

Well, I’m a bit of an expert on the topic, so I may as well chime in.

I’m the technical lead at a place that is quite similar to EduTech, in that we do surveillance systems, and our primary focus is schools. School people are nice to work with (most of the time), and they pay their bills.

Anyways, I’m kind of curious how well Edutech will survive this one. The watchword with any sort of surveillance, strangely even more with audio than video, is “expectation of privacy”.

You’ve got no real expectation of privacy in the halls of a school, or the gym. But anyone who has done anything with any sort of surveillance knows that bathrooms and, by extension, locker rooms are so far off limits…that it just boggles my mind that nobody along the line would have stopped it.

It really is mind-bogglingly stupid.

As for the part about the hard drive and the internet, that’s pretty much standard by now. If they’re not IP cameras, then they’re hooked to a video server which allows them to be browsed over any Ethernet network. This allows the cameras to be browsed real-time from anywhere on the network, or, if it’s set up correctly, anywhere on the internet. This is convenient for various reasons, such as principals and the like wanting to check on thier campuses from home. You’d be amazed at how popular this is.

The images being stored on the hard drive…well, that depends. Being digital recording, and being done through a PC, of course the images have to be stored on a hard drive. Normally, these images will be overwritten within a week or three. If those were on the PC, well, that’s to be expected. However, important images such as the pictures of the kick taking a crowbar to the Coke machine, then just like most software they can be exported and copied wherever.

So, who’s at fault? From the point of view of someone with experience in the field…

On the charge of placing (hidden!) cameras in the locker room, everyone is guilty. How the installers, company management, IT installer (someone has to configure the video servers/IP cameras), school administration, district administration (expenditures are looked at very closely, and someone on the school board ALWAYS wants to see the results of the money spent), and anyone else who was accidentally told about this could possibly have gone through with this I have no idea. This isn’t one of those things that “might not be a good idea”, this is one of those things that “is such a bad fucking idea I should fire you for even suggesting it!”.

Their internet security was obviously screwed up as well, unless it was the AP giving out the IP address and passwords to friends. That’d be the fault of either the District’s IT people, or possibly the IT installer for Edutech.

As a cynic, I’d assume that they had cameras put in both sexes’ locker rooms to try to cover their asses. That way they can say “it can’t possibly be sexual”.

I’m pretty sure some people are going down hard on this one. As it should be. Then again, the AP is now at another school.

Someone made a comparison to the Catholic Church. Wasn’t their response to impropriety a transfer, too?

-Joe

[World_Eater]

*Originally posted by MsRobyn *
**Klaatu, please re-read what I said. I disagreed with the person who said that an adult should be present in the locker room while the kids were undressing. I took her post to mean “the entire time kids were in there”. I then pointed out that in my middle and high schools, the teachers’ offices were in the locker room, thus providing privacy and availability, should anything come to that.

I will reiterate what I said. There is no reason for an adult to be in a locker room with half-naked kids unless there is an altercation that requires their presence. And even then, it should be a same-gender teacher.

Voyeurism aside, imagine how easy it would be for a parent or child to completely misinterpret the actions of an adult on locker-room duty. It’s a scandal waiting to happen.

And, if anyone’s interested, we did a lot of staring at the floor and at our clothes. We were insecure teenage girls.

Robin **

I don’t really get this. At camp, we had open showers where both campers and counselors would use them.

It wasn’t a big deal then, I don’t really see it now.

[World_Eater]

Let me correct that last part.

I don’t see the big deal in having a properly background checked same gender adult in a locker room for the purpose of making sure no one gets out of hand.

[Tommyturtle]

Most agree it was a phenomenally BAD idea and if anyone found out they had done this those responsible would and are in deep doo doo

That said what was supposed to be the benefit?

They either would see nothing actionable or…

If they DID catch a student doing something they were not supposed to be doing and braced them in the principal’s office the kid would say how do you know? Once told the KID would be in the catbird seat for the rest of his time in High School just to keep the bugger quiet(and he still might sue anyway)

Unless the kid was showing his handgun to his friends in there not much else would justify putting those cameras in the locker room…even then the people who ordered the cameras put in there in the first place would STILL be in almost as much trouble as the kid

So high risk of everything blowing up in their faces and low chance of it actually doing any good

Not a smart move no matter how you look at it

[Guinastasia]

When I worked in retail, even with the security cameras, I once asked the Loss Department Manager, and according to her, no cameras were allowed in the bathrooms or dressing rooms. Even though a lot of theft goes on in the dressing rooms.

But they’re allowed in a fucking school locker room?

Oh, and we had teachers come in and out-they were same sex, and the office in the locker room had curtains.

(However, every once in a while Mr. Phelan would come in. Jerk).

[Avalonian]

I don’t know about the rest of you, but the last line in the article was the one that bothered me the most.

Chalos said he doesn’t know if the cameras are still operating.

Hi, sorry? Could someone go in there and turn the fucking things off? Preferably just before removing them from the locker rooms entirely? Seems like a pretty big oversight.

Apart from Mama Tiger’s prefab agenda-serving hijack, I agree with most everyone else here. Cameras in private areas, such as dressing rooms, locker rooms, or bathrooms are frowned upon and generally illegal, as far as I know. I can’t imagine what possessed thiss school to think they could get away with it. And it’s just blatant idiocy to put the images on a networked machine.

[Happy_Fun_Ball]

*Originally posted by Tarantula *
Sick shit? - this certainly is. Harmful for the kids? - most probably not.

Gotta disagree with you here Tarantula. If these pictures were truly available on the internet there is no telling how many copies are now making the rounds out there. It is hard for me to quantify what damage this will cause for these children, but I know I would feel damaged if I were one of the kids. Think about it, how would you feel having a couple of hundred (thousand?, tens of thousand?) pedophiles knowing exactly what you look like because they have been pounding on the love nail while looking at pictures of you changing and showering. I would feel pretty damaged and maybe in need of some therapy to get over it. YMMV

[altoid]

Allow me to approach this subject from left field. (Sorry about the bad unintensional sports/gym pun.)

Schools do spend a lot of money on cameras where children are difficult to supervise (i.e. hallways.) Usually, those images are horribly lo-res and we catch maybe 1/3 of people spotted on camera doing something wrong.

I am not advocating at all what the school did, it is so obviously stupid. But, schools are in a difficult position here. Think of your female gym teachers in high school (yes, I’m abusing stereotypes here) and think of the potential for accusations being thrown their way for supervising a locker room of girls changing from the homophobe croud. At my school, our Gym Teacher is out as a lesbian, and it sets a great example for our gay and lesbian students. I hope no student ever wrongfully accuses her of leering, etc because that could ruin her career.

While I’m still in left field here, I will woefully admit that not everybody I work with is all that above board. I have a co-worker, let’s call him Letchman, who always talks about the hot dental assistant, the voluptuous waitress, the… It was rather amusing in a way because my male co-workers would egg him on to go into detail in mixed company. Without fail, he would eventually get a response from a woman in the room and hilarity ensues in this contrived battle of the sexes. These guys know I went to a women’s college and thought I would be baited eventually by this T&A talk. They were unaware that I worked in the restaurant business for eight years with some of the most sleazy characters.

One day this conversation definitely crossed the line, with Letchman discussing a student as “hot”. My response was, “For both of our sakes, I wish I could evaporate out of this conversation before having heard that.” The guys were oblivious, and asked why Letchman could not express “his feelings.”

So I leaned in to Letchman’s ear in all of my mid-twenties, Art teacher fabulousness and whispered:

(Warning TMI!)

I feel like telling you about the really big, juicy shit I just took, would you like to hear all about it?

Letchman will not be giving me any more trouble. And I will be the First One In Line To Get Him Fired if I hear about any more of this nonsense.

[World_Eater]

In the case of a lesbian gym teacher, wouldn’t some people consider that worse to have in a female locker room?

[Blalron]

Unfortunately, that phrase above, “reasonable expectation of privacy,” is, as far as the law goes, a load of crap. Lawyers can argue that one until the cows come home. It’s still vague, and can be interpreted any number of ways.

How difficult is it to interpret? When I’m taking a dump, I DON’T expect a camera to be looking at me. I expect privacy. I think any person in their right mind would call that a reasonable expectation.

[danceswithcats]

*Originally posted by friedo *
Well, we’re about done with the whole Catholic Church pedophilia scandal. I think it’s about time we loose the ravenous media dogs on Eductation.

Mayhaps that will result in an increasification of learnitude. :rolleyes:

[Tarantula]

*Originally posted by Eyer8 *
** I would feel pretty damaged and maybe in need of some therapy to get over it. YMMV **

This is why Europeans laugh at Americans.

[Happy_Fun_Ball]

*Originally posted by Tarantula *
**This is why Europeans laugh at Americans. **

Touche…

[Darth_Nader]

Note to self:

Never, ever, google “hidden locker room cameras” when you are looking for a news story…

Really.

Argh.

:smack:

[easy_e]

*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
**When I worked in retail, even with the security cameras, I once asked the Loss Department Manager, and according to her, no cameras were allowed in the bathrooms or dressing rooms. Even though a lot of theft goes on in the dressing rooms.

But they’re allowed in a fucking school locker room?**

I had been informed that there were cameras in dressing rooms.

I tried doing a quick Google search, and this Law for Kids site seemed the most reliable. It says

It is in fact legal for stores to monitor dressing rooms, but they must do so in a way that does not invade your personal rights.

Normally in order to be legal, a store must do the following:

1. use same-sex personnel to monitor their customers (women monitor the women’s dressing rooms and men monitor men’s dressing rooms); and,

2. the security systems need to be “tapeless”, meaning that the person watching through the camera can see what’s going on, but can not keep a tape of what they’re viewing.

.

Of course, laws may vary by state, and policies may vary by store. But I do recall seeing decals on dressing room mirrors warning me my actions may be monitored.