Some WebTV is different - it watches you!

From BoingBoing:

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.

I juxtapose this with the seemingly co-ordinated posts of some of the Silicon Valley Tech Bloggers weighing in today to rubbish those who were concerned about Buzz's privacy issues - Thomas Hawk for example:

Similarly a very small, but vocal, group of individuals are shrieking from the mountain top about the fact that Google Buzz might have allowed people to see who you email alot. Big deal. The story came out quickly. Those privacy zealots could quickly correct this by making their contact list private if they wanted to, while the vast majority of us don’t really care that Buzz lets people know who we follow. Want to know who I follow? It’s right here for the whole world to see, go for it. The whining about these privacy issues (which have now been fixed by the way) is getting old.

The price of freedom, a wise person once said, is eternal vigilance. In the Philadelphia school's case it has been wilfully misapplied, in Mr Hawk's case it has been (at best) forgotten.

Update - the School District has responded, saying it is turning the feature off - but the answer begs more questions:

• How did the security feature work?

Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the District's security and technology departments. The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen. This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.

So, if it was only turned on if the laptop was stolen, then how did it take a photo of a student and why are they now having to de-activate the feature?