Two tech workers sidelined in Web-cam case

[russdev]

Two information-technology employees of the Lower Merion School District have been placed on leave while an investigation continues into the use of remote surveillance software on student laptops.

Two tech workers sidelined in Web-cam case | Philadelphia Inquirer | 03/05/2010

[PiqueABoo]

Interesting. I'm from a time/place when/where you went well out of your way to avoid invading anyone's privacy. Taken as a whole, edugeeks appear to have some serious netcop tendencies and I'm not that convinced the duty-of-kiddy-care and similar stuff wheeled out to justify some of it, does justify some of it.

[LeMarchand]

Maybe I'd better have a better discussion about deploying the "Prey" software someone mentioned on another thread with the Head...

[russdev]

The main thing here is policy. Is there policies in place so that we as IT support staff are not held accountable for management actions.

[PiqueABoo]

Is there policies in place so that we as IT support staff are not held accountable for management actions.

I've had quite a few "can you just [prove X is doing Y]?" network surveillance scenarios over many years and I think the only kind of people that will lift a finger in that direction without written orders that also satisfy any of your concerns about morality and legality tend to be crazed-netcops, and perhaps a few very naive pushovers.

The scenario in this case is way out of order and IMO any tech quietly going along with it (and the wiki take suggests at least one of them was a bit of an enthusiast) deserves whatever they get.

[LeMarchand]

Interesting. I'm from a time/place when/where you went well out of your way to avoid invading anyone's privacy. Taken as a whole, edugeeks appear to have some serious netcop tendencies and I'm not that convinced the duty-of-kiddy-care and similar stuff wheeled out to justify some of it, does justify some of it.

I thought that the point of the software was to track down and enable the return of stolen property.