The public school system is watching you:

In a lawsuit filed in federal court, a school district in suburban Philadelphia has been accused of using a Webcam embedded in a school-issued laptop to covertly photograph a 15-year-old student in his home.

According to the boy’s parents, Michael and Holly Robbins — who filed the class-action suit against Lower Merion School District on behalf of their son, Blake, and other students whose privacy might have been violated in a similar fashion — the family discovered that the laptop could be used for remote spying three months ago. The suit states that on Nov. 11, Lindy Matsko, an assistant principal at Harriton High School, informed Blake that he “was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the Webcam embedded in [his] personal laptop issued by the School District.” (The complete text of the suit was posted online by The Philadelphia Inquirer.)

The suit adds that Ms. Matsko subsequently confirmed to the boy’s father that the district “in fact has the ability to remotely activate the Webcam … at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the Webcam.”

They said the feature was only to be used to see who had stolen a laptop. But…

…another student in the district claimed that some students had noticed the camera lights on their school-issued Apple laptops apparently turning on at random before the lawsuit was filed. According to the unnamed student:

Frequently, the green lights next to our iSight webcams will turn on. The school district claims that this is just a glitch. We are all doubting this now.

Unbelievable.

More here: School Accused of Using Webcam to Photograph Student at Home.