The Associated Press is reporting that a federal investigation into the possible misuse of webcams on Apple laptops did not find criminal intent.
The investigation was at a suburban Philadelphia school district that used special software that wound up covertly snapping images of students who were at home with their school provided MacBooks.
The FBI opened the investigation to see if there were violations of federal wiretap statutes or privacy invasions. The school has said the security software had been purchased to track laptops that had been reported stolen, but one student, Blake Robbins, claimed he had been photographed more than 400 times during a two week period on a laptop that had not been reported to be stolen.
The dropping of the federal probe does not have any bearing on a civil lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District. Another student has also joined that legal action.
The school district issued 2,300 MacBook computers and installed software from LanRev to track stolen laptops. Parents and students were not notified the software was on the laptops. The civil suits allege that students' text messages were intercepted, and they were photographed while sleeping or only partially dressed. The school has since deactivated the anti-theft software.
TUAWNo criminal charges in Pennsylvania MacBook spying probe originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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