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Robbins v. Lower Merion School District

Robbins v.
Lower Merion School District
CourtU.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Full case nameBlake J. Robbins, Michael E. Robbins and Holly S. Robbins, individually, and on behalf of all similarly situated persons v. Lower Merion School District, the Board of Directors of the Lower Merion School District, and Christopher W. McGinley, Superintendent of Lower Merion School District
DecidedSettled October 2010 ($610,000)[1]
Docket nos.10-cv-0665
Case history
Related action(s)Hasan v. Lower Merion School District (filed July 27, 2010)
Court membership
Judge(s) sittingSenior U.S. District Judge
Jan E. DuBois

Robbins v. Lower Merion School District is a federal class action lawsuit,[2] brought in February 2010 on behalf of students of two high schools in Lower Merion Township, a suburb of Philadelphia.[3] In October 2010, the school district agreed to pay $610,000 to settle the Robbins and parallel Hasan lawsuits against it.[1]

The suit alleged that, in what was dubbed the "WebcamGate" scandal, the schools secretly spied on the students while they were in the privacy of their homes.[4][5] School authorities surreptitiously and remotely activated webcams embedded in school-issued laptops the students were using at home.[6][7] After the suit was brought, the school district, of which the two high schools are part, revealed that it had secretly taken more than 66,000 images.[8][9] The suit charged that in doing so the district infringed on its students' privacy rights.[6][10][11] A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction, ordering the school district to stop its secret webcam monitoring, and ordered the district to pay the plaintiffs' attorney fees.[12][13][14]

The lawsuit was filed after 15-year-old high school sophomore (second year student) Blake Robbins was disciplined at school for his behavior in his bedroom.[6][14] The school based its decision to discipline Robbins on a photograph that had been secretly taken of him in his bedroom, via the webcam in his school-issued laptop. Without telling its students, the schools remotely accessed their school-issued laptops to secretly take pictures of students in their own homes, their chat logs, and records of the websites they visited. The school then transmitted the images to servers at the school, where school authorities reviewed them and shared the snapshots with others.[15] In one widely published photo, the school had photographed Robbins in his bed.[8] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Attorney's Office, and Montgomery County District Attorney all initiated criminal investigations of the matter, which they combined and then closed because they did not find evidence "that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent". In addition, a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee held hearings on the issues raised by the schools' secret surveillance, and Senator Arlen Specter introduced draft legislation in the Senate to protect against it in the future. Parents, media, and academics criticized the schools, and the matter was cited as a cautionary example of how modern technology can be used to infringe on personal privacy.[16]

In July 2010, another student, Jalil Hasan, filed a parallel second suit. It related to 1,000+ images that the school took surreptitiously via his computer over a two-month period, including shots of him in his bedroom. The district had deactivated its surveillance of the student in February 2010, after the Robbins lawsuit was filed. Five months later—pursuant to a court order in the Robbins case—it informed Hasan for the first time that it had secretly taken the photographs.[17] The district was put on notice of a third parallel suit that a third student intended to bring against the district, for "improper surveillance of the Lower Merion High School student on his school issued laptop", which included taking over 700 webcam shots and screenshots between December 2009 and February 2010.[18]

  1. ^ a b Martin, John P. (October 12, 2010). "Lower Merion district's laptop saga ends with $610,000 settlement". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on October 16, 2010. Retrieved November 30, 2010.
  2. ^ "Complaint, ROBBINS et al v. LOWER MERION SCHOOL DISTRICT et al" (PDF). PacerMonitor. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 9, 2016. Retrieved June 16, 2016.
  3. ^ Stanglin, Doug (February 18, 2010). "School district accused of spying on kids via laptop webcams". USA Today. Archived from the original on September 13, 2012. Retrieved February 19, 2010.
  4. ^ Bender, William (July 28, 2010). "2nd Lower Merion student sues over 'spycam'". Philadelphia Daily News. Archived from the original on August 1, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  5. ^ Grant, Anne (July 19, 2010). "Officials Revisit Lower Merion WebcamGate". NBC Philadelphia. Archived from the original on October 5, 2011. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
  6. ^ a b c Nasaw, Daniel (February 19, 2010). "US school district spied on students through webcams, court told". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on August 22, 2013. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  7. ^ Gambacorta, David (October 12, 2010). "610G settles webcam case". Philadelphia Daily News. Archived from the original on October 18, 2010. Retrieved October 13, 2010.
  8. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference philly2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference autogenerated5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference BOING was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Schreiber, Jeff (February 17, 2010). "Lawsuit: PA School District Using School-Issued Laptop Webcams to Spy on Students". America's Right. Archived from the original on February 21, 2010. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  12. ^ Holmes, Kristin E. (August 31, 2010). "Lower Merion School District ordered to pay plaintiff's lawyer $260,000". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on September 5, 2010. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
  13. ^ "Judge: Lower Merion must pay attorney in laptop case". Main Line Media News. August 30, 2010. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  14. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference philly5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Martin, John P. (April 16, 2010). "Lower Merion schools". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference FBI was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Albanesius, Chloe. "Another Lawsuit Filed Over School Webcam Spying". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on August 2, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  18. ^ "LM could be facing a new webcam suit". Main Line Media News. September 17, 2010. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2022.

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