Did remote learning change school web cam rules/laws?

Your public school may be spying on your child through webcams. Learn about the lawsuit charging a public school of spying and weigh in on the debate between a student's privacy and a school's right to utilize spyware.

Could your child’s public school be playing “big brother” to its students? For some students, their schools just may be spying on them – even in the comfort and privacy of their own homes.

In February, a Pennsylvania Court faced a case in which a public school is accused of spying on students via the webcams attached to school-issued laptops.

According to the initial complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Lower Merion School District used remotely activated webcams on school-issued laptops to spy on students’ home activities. As CNN reports, the lawsuit claims that Blake J. Robbins, a student at Harriton Senior High School, became aware of the spying in November 2009, when an assistant principal told Robbins that he had been caught via the webcam engaging in “improper behavior” in his home.

It is yet unknown what the boy was doing in his bedroom or whether the boy received disciplinary action from the school. Nevertheless, the case is receiving widespread national attention and prompting concerns from students and parents across the country.

The school district has issued a letter to parents admitting that there was spyware installed on the laptops that the schools issued to students, but maintaining that the feature “was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop.”

According to the Washington Post, Doug Young, a spokesperson for the Lower Merion School District, says that the district remotely activated 42 webcams for the purpose of finding missing student laptops over the past 14 months. The district had issued about 2,300 laptops to students in total, and Young reported that the district had recovered 28 of the missing laptops.

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/is-your-school-spying-on-your-child-via-webcams

By: Erika Stanish/KDKA-TV

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Some students at the University of Pittsburgh were disenrolled for the spring semester for not complying with the university’s vaccine mandate.

In November, the University announced it would be following the Biden administration’s federal mandate, requiring all faculty and staff to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 6.

In a statement on Nov. 9, the university said, “While we will begin progressive discipline for faculty and staff who are not compliant with the interim policy by that date, we will use the month of December to help those who want to become compliant do so for the start of the spring term,” a university spokesperson said. “We will similarly work with such students during that period.”

On Tuesday, the University told KDKA all non-compliant students were disenrolled from classes and lost access to Pitt buildings and certain IT functions. Ninety-six percent of Pitt students and employees have been vaccinated.

“In addition, non-compliant employees lost access to Pitt buildings and certain IT resources,” David Seldin said, Pitt assistant vice chancellor of communications.

The University would not say how many students, faculty and staff members were affected but said in a news release in November that more than 93% were fully vaccinated.

“The new requirement will affect approximately 2,250 students, 240 faculty and 700 staff who have not disclosed their vaccination status,” a Pitt spokesperson said in news release in November.

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2022/01/11/unvaccinated-pitt-students-disenrolled/