Lower Merion permanently banned from webcam monitoring

A federal judge Friday permanently barred the Lower Merion School District from using webcams or other intrusive technology to secretly monitor students through their school-issued laptops.

The five-page injunction signed by U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois also requires the suburban district to adopt transparent and expansive policies by September to govern its student laptop program.

It says Lower Merion can implement an alternative to webcam tracking to find missing or stolen computers, but only if the technology is "conspicuously disclosed" in a document signed by students and their parents. And it says the district needs to make accommodations for students who don't want to participate.

The order was not unexpected. It followed weeks of negotiations by lawyers for the district and students' families, and it did not stray too far from the spirit of the temporary restraints the judge imposed in February. It also mirrored many of the practices Lower Merion officials had already pledged to institute.

Still, the injunction marked the latest and perhaps largest step the district has taken to move past the laptop tracking furor that erupted three months ago. And while it is tailored only to protect the thousands who attend Lower Merion schools, advocates hope the order could serve as a broader model for districts striving to make 21st Century technology an integral part of learning.

"If we get it right here, we save a lot of trouble for other people," said Mary Catherine Roper, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who participated in drafting the agreement.

The order will also require Lower Merion to notify the nearly 40 high school students who were surreptitiously photographed by their school-issued laptops and to arrange for them or their parents to privately view the pictures. The inspections will occur under the guidance of two federal judges, and the photos will later be destroyed.

The injunction was one of the initial demands made by the family of Blake Robbins, a Harriton High sophomore, in a civil rights lawsuit that exposed the district's use of webcams on student laptops.

"It does put us very far down the road to resolving the equitable injunctive relief we had sought," said the family's attorney, Mark Haltzman.

Still unresolved is the family's demand for a monetary settlement. They contend that district officials invaded Blake's privacy when they activated the webcam on his laptop last fall and captured hundreds of images, including photos of the Penn Valley teen in his bedroom.

A Lower Merion spokesman and the attorney representing the district declined to comment.