Macbook spy scandal - FBI becomes involved

David Heath
Sunday, 21 February 2010 10:31

Your IT - Home IT

Reports have just emerged that the FBI has become involved in the school spying case reported earlier.

In the past hour, CNN has reported that the FBI is investigating whether Federal laws, including Wiretap and various computer intrusion laws have been broken in the Harriton High School remote spying incident.

To re-cap earlier coverage, a Harriton student was disciplined as he had "engaged in improper behaviour in [his] home."  Proof for this was furnished in the form of a photograph captured from the webcam in the school-supplied Macbook.

The parents (obviously) sued the school district.  It was the filing of this action that triggered the FBI investigation.

It has yet to be determined whether the investigation will extend to any of the possible child obscenity laws that may have been broken, nor to whether other school officials, be they administration or school IT staff, were also viewing random students in their homes. 

Remember that many students had reported the seemingly random activation of their in-built webcam while the computer was turned on and sitting on a desk in their bedroom.

School district officials have admitted that it was a mistake not to explicitly notify families of the ability to monitor the computers, but continue to insist that the feature was only intended for the tracking of lost or stolen laptops.  There were 42 losses, of which 18 have been recovered.