Laptop Webcam Tool's Plug To Be Pulled

PHILADELPHIA - The technology that enabled Lower Merion School District officials to remotely take webcam photos will soon be shut down.

Lower Merion relied on a computer tool called TheftTrack, which allowed school officials to activate a laptop's webcam remotely and take photos in the event a computer was missing or stolen.

Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins claims in a federal lawsuit that his picture was taken with the school-issued laptop's webcam and he was disciplined with it.

The district denies it used the webcam to spy on or discipline Robbins but admits it did not warn students or parents that the cameras could be remotely activated.

Regardless, the company that owns the software said the feature will soon become a thing of the past.

You can't see TheftTrack on a laptop, but subscribers can see you. The tool is designed to track down the person who steals and then uses a laptop.

"If the laptop was stolen, they could remotely take a photograph of the individual to be able to help identify the person using the stolen device," Stephen Midgley, vice president of global marketing for Absolute Software, told Fox 29 News on Monday.

The subscriber – in this case, Lower Merion schools – would activate the device, which would then take a photo every 15 minutes.

But by the end of the school year, however, that won't happen anymore. Absolute Software bought LANRev, the company that sold the TheftTrack software.

"The TheftTrack was a feature that they offered that we don't see value in. It is not part of our go-to-market strategy, so we will be disabling TheftTrack," Midgley said.

Absolute offers its own product, Computrace, to track down stolen computers. It's a kind of LoJack for laptops. It traces IP addresses instead of relying on webcams.

"We don't have the ability to turn on the webcam. We don't view that as an effective means of tracking down the location of a tool," Midgley said.

Absolute decided to do away with TheftTrack before the Lower Merion controversy exploded. But it could prevent another school district from facing the same kind of trouble.

Asked if it means that no other school district will be able to do what Lower Merion did, Midgley answered, "That's correct."

Midgley said the process is underway, but it will take several more weeks before TheftTrack is completely disabled.

The new company said it doesn't have all of the statistics and information that the old company had. Lower Merion and other districts were subscribers to the old company, so Absolute couldn't provide and easy answer – no answer at all, quite frankly, Gomez reported.