On the Spectrum — What rights do students really have?
A couple years ago I was part of an extended household that included a teenage boy who attended online classes using a computer provided by the school. It never occurred to me to wonder if the school was using the computer webcam to spy on our household.
As reported on National Public Radio, a suburban Philadelphia high school student is suing his school for allegedly spying on him through the webcam of a school-issued laptop. The suit alleges that in November, a school official accused Blake Robbins, 15, of improper behavior in his home. The school official cited as evidence a webcam photo that the official believed caught Robbins handling pills.
“They were actually Mike and Ikes,” Robbins” attorney Mark Haltzman said, referring to a type of candy. “And the assistant principal approached him and his parents about that, and made allegations that they thought he was selling drugs.”
I realize that many of us abdicate privacy by allowing our purchasing habits and our interests to be recorded through online networking ? but we do so with full knowledge, by setting privacy levels on our postings or accepting cookies from vendors” sites. We can control the access that we allow other people to have.
There is something creepy, however, about schools using webcams to spy on students in their homes.
Consider this statement by parent Karen Gotlieb, as quoted by NPR: “The laptop was either on our kitchen table, open, as I cooked dinner or as my other child did his homework, as my husband came in the door and read the mail. It was open in her bedroom while she changed her clothes. She even brought it in the bathroom to listen to music on while she was showering.”
Once again, that”s creepy! Not to mention that it”s got to be as illegal as, say, warrantless wiretapping.
School district officials claimed that they only used the webcams to track down lost or stolen computers and that they have now stopped the practice ? but if that was the case, upon what grounds did school officials mistake Robbins handling candy for selling drugs as the lawsuit alleges?
This episode raises serious questions about how much rights students really have. Consider the conflict that can erupt with school officials when student journalists report on sensitive issues and events. The American Society of Newspaper Editors offers a First Amendment lesson plan, created by Ohio instructor Doug Stevens, that explores the rights guaranteed to teens by the First Amendment, as well as responsibilities that student journalists must follow. This lesson plan and others are online at www.highschooljournalism.org/Teachers/Lesson_Plans/Archive.cfm.
NPR states that federal prosecutors and the FBI have launched a criminal investigation into the alleged webcam use.
In the meantime, although I”m inclined to support taking courses online or using at-home computer time to augment time spent in class, this episode raises concerns for me about accepting a free computer from the school. Most likely the school is innocent, but one never knows who may be looking back from the other side of the webcam.
Cynthia Parkhill is the focus pages editor for the record-Bee and editor of the Clear Lake Observer-American. She can be contacted at ObserverAmerican@gmail.com or 263-5636 ext. 39.
