The class-action lawsuit filed against the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Philadelphia earlier this year took a new turn when lawyers for Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, said that the Lower Merion School District personnel used built-in tracking software on the laptops of the students for taking “thousands” of unauthorized pictures.

Accusing the school district officials of spying on students using the school-issued laptops, the lawyers said that the officials clicked pictures of teenagers in their homes; and specified that the images taken include “pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping.”

In an April 15 motion filed by Blake and his parents, Michael and Holly Robbins, it was revealed that, during a 15-day span last fall, the school district personnel remotely activated Blake’s MacBook more than 400 times, taking ‘unauthorized’ pictures of the teenager.

The issue of remote activation of the cameras, using the school’s remote-monitoring software LANrev, came to light when the school authorities reprimanded Blake for “improper behavior in his home,” based on a photograph that was taken remotely.

Noting that “the Webcam remotely activated at any time by the School District will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located,” the lawsuit claims that the school district has violated several federal and state laws against surveillance and wiretapping, including the federal Electronics Communications Privacy Act.