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Privacy breech by school frightens parents...
A reminder for parents to stay vigilant while their children are on the internet came this week from a somewhat unexpected source. It seems a Pennsylvania school is being sued after the deputy principle went ahead and punished a 15 year old student for "inappropriate behaviour" while he was in his BEDROOM. The "inappropriate behaviour" is of course rumored to be in the context of self pleasure.
How did the deputy principle even know about this event taking place you ask? It seems the webcam in the school provided macbook was remotely turned on allowing live, remote viewing. The deputy principle was certainly all to happy to furnish the boy with photographic evidence. 
The FBI have now been called in to investigate the potential breech of multiple federal and state laws. The scary thing is it isn't isolated to this one child. There have actually been rumors going around the school between students that the teachers were spying on them through the webcams with a large amount of students claiming the little green activity light on their webcam would turn itself on randomly.
But beyond the obvious privacy issues this sparks off I fail to see where any one at the school thought that had not only the right, but responsibility to discipline a child for actions taking place in their own home. Their authority ends at the school gate as far as I'm concerned. What a child does whilst in the care of their PARENTS is certainly none of the schools business. The school district board now claims to have disabled the feature, but given they had denied it's existence for months, and are trying to cover up this whole indecent I really don't believe much they have to say.
This is certainly a case in proof that you really CAN'T allow your child, even teenager, alone with a computer that is connected to the internet. Of course that doesn't mean you have to sit next to your teenager while they muck around online like you would a younger child, but it does mean computers with internet access should be in high traffic walk ways of the house. In this way you can glance at their screen (and the activity light of the webcam) every time you walk passed. If they're rushing to close something down when you do, then you know you need to investigate further.
The internet can be an utterly powerful tool, which enables better education, flow of truth and friendships. But it does need to be understood properly BEFORE you mess with it, and children (and teenagers) need to be supervised while using it and taught proper, responsible usage skills.
