Former student files second lawsuit over school webcam spying   Pa. school district left the photo-taking feature on after teen retrieved lost laptop

Greg Keizer:

Computerworld – Another student this week sued the suburban Philadelphia school district embroiled in allegations of spying on high schoolers using their school-issued laptops.
 
The lawsuit is the second aimed at the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa., which was first accused of spying on students by Blake Robbins and his parents, Michael and Holly Robbins, of Penn Valley, Pa. TheRobbins sued the district in February, after Blake was accused by a Harriton High School official of “improper behavior in his home” and shown a photograph taken by his laptop.
 
A report conducted by an investigator hired by the district later concluded that the cameras had snapped more than 30,000 photographs when school personnel triggered software designed to locate lost, missing or stolen laptops. The report blamed the district’s IT staff for the fiasco, saying that a former head of the department had dismissed earlier concerns about privacy violations if the software was used.