High School Sued Over Alleged Spying in Students’ Homes
According to an International Business Times article, parents of a student at Harriton High School in Philadelphia have filed a suit against the school for allegedly spying on their child via a webcam installed on a laptop. The school-issued laptop was given to students so they could complete homework assignments. The parents became suspicious of the spying activity after the school notified them that their son had engaged in “improper behavior in his home.”
A later article published in The Washington Post reported that a school official had seen the student eating a piece of candy and had mistaken it for a pill and assumed he was dealing drugs. The parents were reportedly enraged and confronted the school’s administrators, who later revealed that they had been watching students by recording them using the laptop’s built-in camera.
The inclusion of clandestine software on computers is known as “spyware.” Although the computers were school property, capturing images and footage from a student’s home likely infringes upon several privacy laws. The suit filed by the parents of the student as a class action made claims of “theft of intellectual property” under the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, “Interception of electronic communications” under the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, violations of the “Stored Communications Act” and “Civil Rights Act,” as well as charges of invasions of privacy and violations of Commonwealth law in Pennsylvania regarding wiretapping and electronic surveillance.
The principle concern included in the lawsuit was that the images captured by the school “may consist of images of minors and their parents” in “various stages of dress or undress” and other “compromising or embarrassing positions.” The complaint further alleged that the activation of the webcam software was initiated without the consent or knowledge of the parents or the students.
Monheit is the managing lawyer at Monheit Law, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has practiced law since 1989. Michael Monheit was the managing attorney of the law offices of Herbert Monheit — now Silverman and Fodera — a firm founded by... Michael Monheit→
