Authorities at the Herriton High School in Lower Merion School District near Philadelphia have invited the ire of its students, their families, the community and privacy advocates for having installed remote-activation software in the Webcams of the MacBooks given to students, for use at school as well as home.

The litigious remote-activation practice has also led to a lawsuit filed by a student, Blake Robbins, who has complained that he was given a notice by an assistant principal for “improper behavior in his home,” and a photograph from his computer’s Webcam was cited as evidence.

Within days of the filing of the lawsuit, officials at the Lower Merion Friday admitted to have remotely activated webcams 42 times in the last 14 months. However, they insisted that the aim behind the remote activation was to find missing laptops, rather than spying on students.

An unnamed law enforcement officer, apprising The Associated Press about the case, said that FBI probe has commenced against the Pennsylvania school district, following the accusation that the webcams of student’s computers are secretly switched on inside their homes.

Noting that the school district did not inform the parents about the possibility of the remote activation of the webcams in their homes, while handing out the computers to the students, district spokesman Doug Young said: “It's clear what was in place was insufficient, and that's unacceptable.”