LOWER MERION SCANDAL Charles Grimm Jonathan Garcia
Dec 16, 2015
LOWER MERION SCANDAL
Charles Grimm Jonathan Garcia
Overview
One-to-One program LANrev The scandal unfolds The outcome Ethics
One-to-One Program
Lower Merion School District (LMSD) loans MacBooks to it’s students
Acceptable-use contract necessary for students and parents
Each laptop had LANrev installedRemote activation tracking and monitoring
software Users not informed of LANrev
LANrev
School’s intended purpose: to recover the laptop if it goes missing or stolen
Theft Track Capabilities:
Can be activated at anytime remotely IP trackingScreen-captureImage-capture via webcam
Events
Blake Robbins called into office and disciplined based on an image captured with LANrev
Robbins family files class action lawsuit against LMSD
Julil Hasan informed LANrev had run for two months straight on his computer
Second lawsuit by Hasan family filed
Outcome
Judge orders One-to-One policy to be revamped
District settles with Robbins and Hasan Total of $610,000
Absolute Software disables Theft Track
Ethical Analysis
Social Contract TheoryPrivacy vs Property rights
UtilitarianismProvided students with resources despite
violations Kantianism
The school unintentionally deceived students
Questions?
Resources
http://cultureandcommunication.org/tdm/s10/03/02/how-can-somebody-spy-on-your-webcam/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/school-under-fire-for-spying-on-kid-via-webcam-at-home.ars
http://articles.philly.com/2010-07-28/news/24972175_1_webcam-monitoring-system-culinary-school
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html http://www.tekgoblin.com/2010/02/21/lmsd-response-to-webcam-pri
vacy-allegation http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/19/laptop.suit/?hpt=Sbin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_Distr
ict http://craphound.com/robbins17.pdf
http://articles.philly.com/2010-10-12/news/24981536_1_laptop-students-district-several-million-dollars