School has 1,000s of images from student laptops

PHILADELPHIA — A suburban Philadelphia school district snapped secret webcam pictures of a high school student when he was partially undressed or sleeping in his bed, and captured instant messages he exchanged with friends, the student charged in court papers this week.

The Lower Merion School District concedes its efforts to find missing school-issued laptops was misguided, and officials vowed anew Friday to release the findings of their internal investigation, “good and bad.”

The LANrev software took screen shots and webcam photos every 15 seconds when activated. The district thereby captured over 400 screen shots and webcam images of Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins, according to court filings this week.

The suit, filed in February, exposed the tracking program and prompted an FBI investigation into possible wiretap violations, along with debate among parents about whether to support the potential class-action lawsuit.

“A substantial number of webcam photos have been recovered in the investigation,” school board President David Ebby said Friday. “As we have made clear since day one, we are committed to providing all of the facts — good and bad — at the conclusion of the investigation.”

Mark Haltzman, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Robbins and his family, said evidence now shows the district used the tracking software for non-authorized reasons — for instance, when students failed to pay the required insurance or return the laptops at year’s end.

“Thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes, many of which never reported their laptops lost or missing,” Haltzman wrote in a motion filed Thursday.

According to Haltzman, technology coordinator Carol Cafiero refused to answer his questions at a deposition, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. She and technician Michael Perbix were the only employees authorized to activate the webcams.

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