What's this about schools forcing pupils to hand over passwords?

[AlsoNamedBort]

Here’s the actual law that passed:
https://legiscan.com/IL/text/HB4207/2013

As far as I can tell, it doesn’t say anything about requiring students to hand over passwords. That article doesn’t list any source, but my guess is that it’s one school district saying that.

[llcoolbj77]

@Dr.Drake

Whether it is morally right or even a good idea is a separate question, I think, but children don’t have the same rights as adults, and certainly not the same fourth-amendment protections.

No. Children enjoy every fourth amendment protection that an adult does.

Some of their rights to privacy are limited, somewhat, in a school setting, i.e., a locker is considered school property and subject to search without a warrant or consent by the student. A backpack, generally, is not.

A school does not act in *loco parentis *in any legal sense of the word when a child is in a school setting.

[Czarcasm]

Here is more about schools demanding passwords., and this link has a copy of the letter one district sent out to parents claiming they have that right.

[Rhiannon8404]

@Joey_P

I think you guys are showing your age. They’re doing this on their phones not asking for passes to the computer lab so they can go torment someone on Twitter.

ETA and yes, they shouldn’t be using their phones at school, but they do. Most of my employees are high school kids and I know they text/FB/IG etc all day long at school.

I know they are using their phones. I know they are doing it at school. I don’t even have a problem with using phones at school. My son’s high school has a very liberal personal electronics policy and yet, bullying and cyberbullying are the lowest in the district. What I am trying to say is that the ONLY way I feel the school should be allowed to ask for passwords is if the student actually used school computers. Under no other circumstances should the student be forced to give school authorities their passwords.

As for handing over passwords. I suggest that a better idea would be that if someone feels that cyberbullying is going on, it should be reported to the police who can than use the legal system to access the account. FB works with police on these matters and will give police full access to accounts that includes even things that the person thought they deleted (nothing on FB is ever deleted, it’s just not displayed to you or the public anymore). Cyberbullying (and real bullying) would go away a lot faster if people took it more seriously.

I agree it should be handled as a real crime by the police.

[That_Don_Guy]

@Bricker

In Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007), the US Supreme Court found that a school decision to suspend a student for conduct outside school grounds and school hours was permissible.

The incident took place at an event “during school hours and under school supervision.” The Court said nothing about a school being able to discipline a student for anything he does, say, on a Saturday in his own home.

“A principal may, consistent with the First Amendment , restrict student speech at a school event, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.” (emphasis mine) - from the syllabus for Morse v. Frederick.

[missred]

[quote=“Rhiannon8404, post:24, topic:710596”]

I know they are using their phones. I know they are doing it at school. I don’t even have a problem with using phones at school. My son’s high school has a very liberal personal electronics policy and yet, bullying and cyberbullying are the lowest in the district. What I am trying to say is that the ONLY way I feel the school should be allowed to ask for passwords is if the student actually used school computers. Under no other circumstances should the student be forced to give school authorities their passwords.
QUOTE]

While the kids may not be using school owned equipment, are they using school bandwidth?

One of the things that my AFT union rep sister advises all of the educators who she represents is to use their own data plan if they want any privacy for financial type transactions or visiting sites that might not be considered appropriate for school use. Bandwidth does belong to the school in question.

Outside of school, on their own devices and data plan, the schools need to suck it up and go through police channels.

[Alessan]

If American data plans weren’t so crappy, students wouldn’t *need *school bandwidth.

[xizor]

The last time I was connected to a school wifi was last year but they did block all social media traffic

[Dag_Otto]

If someone other than the student has access to the password, then the student has a plausible excuse for questionable content that may be posted using that account. How does any school that collects passwords protect that information?

[Alley_Dweller]

This story has caught fire on the internet and is being spread by web sites (including those of legitimate news organizations) around the world.

Here is the real Straight Dope.

In 2013, the Illinois State Legislature passed a bill called The Right to Privacy in the School Setting Act (105 ILCS 75/). This law was effective Jan 1, 2014. Section 15 of the law says:

Sec. 15. Notification. An elementary or secondary school must provide notification to the student and his or her parent or guardian that the elementary or secondary school may request or require a student to provide a password or other related account information in order to gain access to the student’s account or profile on a social networking website if the elementary or secondary school has reasonable cause to believe that the student’s account on a social networking website contains evidence that the student has violated a school disciplinary rule or policy. The notification must be published in the elementary or secondary school’s disciplinary rules, policies, or handbook or communicated by similar means.
(Source: P.A. 98-129, eff. 1-1-14.)

If you don’t want to read that, it says schools must inform parents that they have the right to request student passwords. IT DOES NOT SAY that schools actually have the right to request student passwords. It just says they have to notify parents that they do.

I can find no law that explicitly grants schools the right to demand passwords. But maybe it’s an implied right under some other law or legal principle. Or maybe it isn’t.

Anyway, back to the story: Some small school districts in Southern Illinois began sending out these required notices by mail to parents sometime around January 15, 2015. Confused parents showed these letters to KTVI, the Fox affiliate TV station in St Louis. Intrepid reporters decided to investigate.

They found that in 2014 Illinois lawmakers passed a law (effective Jan 1, 2015) requiring school officials to investigate reports of cyberbullying even if the alleged bullying did not occur at school and did not use school facilities. The law. The law did not grant schools any power to demand passwords. The word “password” does not appear in the law. But they put two and two together and decided that this new cyberbullying law was the reason behind the letters the schools were sending.

They got a confused school official to say ” To get into a social networking site and it could be at a school or at home. That we would be able to get that password and get onto their account,”[sic].

They posted the article on their web site. Someone spotted it and set the whole internet outrage machine into action. Nearly every outraged article you will find traces back to that one post on the TV station web site. It’s taken on a life of its own and there is no stopping it.

There are newspapers, TV stations, and periodicals spreading it around the country and around the world. Not a damned one of them has bothered to actually check what the cyberbullying law says.

[jz78817]

school administrators are proof that if you give people even a tiny amount of power, they’ll try to abuse it.

[TBG]

This is as dumb as if they tried to require keys to students homes upon suspicion of any noncyber form of rulebreaking.

[Alley_Dweller]

@TBG

This is as dumb as if they tried to require keys to students homes upon suspicion of any noncyber form of rulebreaking.

So it’s quite fortunate that there is no actual law that requires students to turn over their passwords or their house keys. Just a lot of internet scare mongering.

[Joey_P]

@TBG

This is as dumb as if they tried to require keys to students homes upon suspicion of any noncyber form of rulebreaking.

That reminds me of a case from a few years ago where schools had given students (loaned) laptops. If they suspected students of doing illegal things (I think if may have just been drug related activity) they would remotely turn on the camera to spy on them at home. That seemed absolutely awful.

My theory is that schools should be investigating bullying that happens during school hours (and/or on school property). If it happens outside of school, it should be left to the parents unless the student reports it to teacher/counselor/principal. Then, I feel, the school has the duty to step in to help resolve it. At least if it’s between two classmates. However, requiring a student to hand over social media passwords should be beyond the scope of what they do. I think they can ask for it, but not require it*. In many cases, the person getting bullied may be helped by showing the school employee screen shots (or sitting with them at a computer logged in the account) of what’s going on and they can go from there. But, IMO, if you feel the need to log into a SM account, then it’s time to get the police involved. I believe cyber bullying is illegal, and we’ve all seen what happens when it goes to far. I’m happy to let the school take the first crack at it (if the student reports it), but I think it should be turned over to the police as soon as they see the kid starting to feel the effects of it…at least for the really serious stuff. I mean, if I send some dweeb a private message calling him a dweeb, that’s one thing. But if I get half a dozen of my friends to start relentlessly picking on ‘the gay kid’, the torment is going to get really bad really fast (groupthink and all that) and taking it to the police will sooner rather than later is probably better than letting staff handle after the initial ‘John said you guys were bothering him on facebook and calling him names, he showed me the messages, some of these messages are very disturbing, I’ve already called all of your parents about this so we can discuss what’s going to happen next’ (But Ms Johnson, we were just joking/John didn’t think it was a joke, he’s scared to come to school). We take this very seriously here and if it continues we have to turn it over to the police and it’ll be out of our hands. Remember, even if you stop sending him FB messages and just say these things to his face, it’s still bullying and there will still be repercussions’.

In many cases that’ll do the trick. Many kids are just going along with their friends and a run in with the police and the fall out with their parents is often times enough to set them straight.

I should say that this isn’t something I’ve given a lot/any thought too so there’s likely to be holes in my plan.

*Actually, I take that back, I don’t even think they should ask for it. At most, they should just say 'can you log on to facebook (etc) so I can see what you’ve been writing.

[Doctor_Jackson]

@Alley_Dweller

If you don’t want to read that, it says schools must inform parents that they have the right to request student passwords. IT DOES NOT SAY that schools actually have the right to request student passwords. It just says they have to notify parents that they do.

That sentence made no sense whatsoever, so I did a little research. I’m going to quote the act as shown on the Illinois General Assemblypage so you’ll know I’m not making this up (all bolding and underlining mine):

@State of Illinois

(105 ILCS 75/1)
Sec. 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the Right to Privacy in the School Setting Act.
(Source: P.A. 98-129, eff. 1-1-14.)

(105 ILCS 75/5) 
Sec. 5. Definitions. In this Act:
"Elementary or secondary school" means a public elementary or secondary school or school district or a nonpublic school recognized by the State Board of Education.
"Post-secondary school" means an institution of higher learning as defined in the Higher Education Student Assistance Act.
"Social networking website" means an Internet-based service that allows individuals to do the following:
    (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within

a bounded system created by the service;
(2) create a list of other users with whom they share

a connection within the system; and
(3) view and navigate their list of connections and

those made by others within the system.
“Social networking website” does not include electronic mail.
(Source: P.A. 98-129, eff. 1-1-14.)

(105 ILCS 75/10) 
Sec. 10. Prohibited inquiry.

** (a) It is unlawful for a post-secondary school to request or require a student or his or her parent or guardian to provide a password or other related account information in order to gain access to the student’s account or profile on a social networking website or to demand access in any manner to a student’s account or profile on a social networking website.**
(b) Nothing in this Section limits a post-secondary school’s right to do the following:
(1) promulgate and maintain lawful school policies

governing the use of the post-secondary school’s electronic equipment, including policies regarding Internet use, social networking website use, and electronic mail use; and
(2) monitor usage of the post-secondary school’s

electronic equipment and the post-secondary school’s electronic mail without requesting or requiring a student to provide a password or other related account information in order to gain access to the student’s account or profile on a social networking website.
(c) Nothing in this Section prohibits a post-secondary school from obtaining information about a student that is in the public domain or that is otherwise obtained in compliance with this Act.
(d) This Section does not apply when a post-secondary school has reasonable cause to believe that a student’s account on a social networking website contains evidence that the student has violated a school disciplinary rule or policy.
(Source: P.A. 98-129, eff. 1-1-14.)

(105 ILCS 75/15) 

Sec. 15. Notification. An elementary or secondary school must provide notification to the student and his or her parent or guardian that the elementary or secondary school may request or require a student to provide a password or other related account information in order to gain access to the student’s account or profile on a social networking website if the elementary or secondary school has reasonable cause to believe that the student’s account on a social networking website contains evidence that the student has violated a school disciplinary rule or policy. The notification must be published in the elementary or secondary school’s disciplinary rules, policies, or handbook or communicated by similar means.
(Source: P.A. 98-129, eff. 1-1-14.)

(105 ILCS 75/20) 
Sec. 20. Penalty. A post-secondary school or an agent of a post-secondary school who violates this Act is guilty of a petty offense. 

(Source: P.A. 98-129, eff. 1-1-14.)

So, post secondary schools (colleges, universities, vocational scools, etc) absolutely cannot “request or require” a student social networking password. IOW they cannot even ask for one, apparently under any circumstances.

“Recognized” elementary and secondary schools (generally k-12) must send notification that they MAY “request or require” such passwords. IOW, not only can they ask, but hey can require the student to reveal their social media password(s) under “reasonable cause”. If the act said only “require” then I would agree with Alley Dweller. “Require” indicates authority. By definition, an entity cannot require anything that it does not have the grounds to enforce. By requiring notice that the school can require the information, the General Assembly belives it has granted the authority to enforce.

IANAL

[Tom_Tildrum]

@Smapti

Can a public school require a student to violate a legally binding contract?

FWIW, a contract with a minor is usually not binding upon the minor.

[Alley_Dweller]

Sec. 15. Notification. An elementary or secondary school must provide notification to the student and his or her parent or guardian that the elementary or secondary school may request or require a student to provide a password or other related account information in order to gain access to the student’s account or profile on a social networking website if the elementary or secondary school has reasonable cause to believe that the student’s account on a social networking website contains evidence that the student has violated a school disciplinary rule or policy. The notification must be published in the elementary or secondary school’s disciplinary rules, policies, or handbook or communicated by similar means.
(Source: P.A. 98-129, eff. 1-1-14.)

@Doctor_Jackson

“Recognized” elementary and secondary schools (generally k-12) must send notification that they MAY “request or require” such passwords. IOW, not only can they ask, but hey can require the student to reveal their social media password(s) under “reasonable cause”. If the act said only “require” then I would agree with Alley Dweller. “Require” indicates authority. By definition, an entity cannot require anything that it does not have the grounds to enforce. By requiring notice that the school can require the information, the General Assembly belives it has granted the authority to enforce.

IANAL

I underlined different words.

This particular paragraph does NOT say that a school may “request or require” such passwords. It only says that they must provide a notification that they may “request or require” such passwords.
It’s like if your teacher makes you say “I am very sorry I hit you.” You may be secretly gleeful you hit me, but you have to say the words to make the teacher go away.

Nothing in that paragraph actually says that schools are granted the authority to request or require passwords. The only thing that paragraph says is that schools are required to provide a notification saying “we may request or require passwords.” I can’t find any section of the law that says that elementary or secondary schools can actually request or require passwords. Can you? Whoever drafted that law probably assumed there was some authority, but it’s not contained in this section of the law.

Yes, the law is absurd. Nothing prevents legislators from writing absurd laws.

[Alley_Dweller]

@Doctor_Jackson

So, post secondary schools (colleges, universities, vocational scools, etc) absolutely cannot “request or require” a student social networking password. IOW they cannot even ask for one, apparently under any circumstances.

The prohibition on asking does not apply if the post-secondary school has reason to believe that the student has violated a school disciplinary rule or policy.

105 ILCS 75/10)
Sec. 10. Prohibited inquiry.
…
(d) This Section does not apply when a post-secondary school has reasonable cause to believe that a student’s account on a social networking website contains evidence that the student has violated a school disciplinary rule or policy.

[Alley_Dweller]

The ACLU and the state legislator who wrote the anti-cyberbullying law tell the Huffington Post that nothing in the law requires students to turn over their passwords.

Illinois Is Not Actually Requiring Students To Hand Over Their Facebook Passwords

[Dangerosa]

@Alley_Dweller

The ACLU and the state legislator who wrote the anti-cyberbullying law tell the Huffington Post that nothing in the law requires students to turn over their passwords.

Illinois Is Not Actually Requiring Students To Hand Over Their Facebook Passwords

Its one of those laws that is going to be a very nasty snafu for some school administrator and parent. The kids don’t HAVE to turn over their passwords and in fact, turning over their passwords is a violation of their use agreement with the social media sites. It does permit the school to ASK. However, what will happen is the administrator will ask, the student will refuse, the student will face disciplinary action, and the shit will hit the fan for some student whose parents want to make it a case.

I had a civil rights run in last year with my daughters school, and they didn’t give her detention for free speech, they gave her detention for defiance when she refused to stop her political protest. Unfortunately for them, that’s still a violation of her free speech rights. (And its amazing how fast a school backs down when you copy your attorney on your email and throws their own “behavior specialist” - i.e. hall monitor - under the bus).