LOWER MERION SCANDAL

Charles Grimm Jonathan Garcia

Overview

One-to-One program LANrev The scandal unfolds The outcome Ethics

One-to-One Program

Lower Merion School District (LMSD) loans MacBooks to it’s students

Acceptable-use contract necessary for students and parents

Each laptop had LANrev installedRemote activation tracking and monitoring

software Users not informed of LANrev

LANrev

School’s intended purpose: to recover the laptop if it goes missing or stolen

Theft Track Capabilities:

Can be activated at anytime remotely IP trackingScreen-captureImage-capture via webcam

Events

Blake Robbins called into office and disciplined based on an image captured with LANrev

Robbins family files class action lawsuit against LMSD

Julil Hasan informed LANrev had run for two months straight on his computer

Second lawsuit by Hasan family filed

Outcome

Judge orders One-to-One policy to be revamped

District settles with Robbins and Hasan Total of $610,000

Absolute Software disables Theft Track

Ethical Analysis

Social Contract TheoryPrivacy vs Property rights

UtilitarianismProvided students with resources despite

violations Kantianism

The school unintentionally deceived students

Questions?

Resources  

http://cultureandcommunication.org/tdm/s10/03/02/how-can-somebody-spy-on-your-webcam/

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/school-under-fire-for-spying-on-kid-via-webcam-at-home.ars

http://articles.philly.com/2010-07-28/news/24972175_1_webcam-monitoring-system-culinary-school

http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html http://www.tekgoblin.com/2010/02/21/lmsd-response-to-webcam-pri

vacy-allegation http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/19/laptop.suit/?hpt=Sbin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_Distr

ict http://craphound.com/robbins17.pdf  

http://articles.philly.com/2010-10-12/news/24981536_1_laptop-students-district-several-million-dollars