A federal judge has ruled that an Ohio woman and her boyfriend can sue a software company that monitored their sexually explicit communication.

An Ohio judge ruled that a woman and her boyfriend can sue the software company that tracked their sexually explicit online communication, through a service used to recover stolen computers.

Susan Clements-Jeffrey, who worked as a substitute teacher in the Clark County School District, was using a laptop to communicate with her boyfriend Carlton Smith, who lived in Massachusetts. The laptop had been stolen from Kiefer Alternative School where Clements-Jeffrey was serving as a long-term substitute. The student that pilfered the machine sold it to another student for $40, who turned around and sold it to Clements-Jeffrey for $60. Clements-Jeffrey claims she didn’t know the laptop had been stolen because it had been wiped of its software.

She also didn’t know that the school district had installed Absolute Software’s theft recovery service on the laptop, which includes its LoJack software that allows the company to remotely recover lost or stolen computers.

Wired reports that after the Clark County School District reported the computer missing, Absolute began tracking IP addresses from Clements-Jeffrey’s computer when she logged onto the Internet. Usually, Absolute would turn over these IP addresses to law enforcement who would issue a subpoena for the ISP address in order to get the suspect’s name and address. However, Absolute Software Theft Recovery Officer Kyle Magnus began monitoring Clements-Jeffrey’s communication with Smith, intercepting emails, keystrokes, and Internet surfing in real time. Magnus even took three screen shots of Clements-Jeffrey chatting with Smith via webcam. The images showed her naked, and in one shot, her legs were spread.

Wired says Magnus then sent the data he had collected to a detective. The police showed up to Clements-Jeffrey’s apartment brandishing the explicit images. She said that is the first time she learned that the computer was stolen. Clements-Jeffrey was arrested and charged for stealing the laptop, but the charges were dismissed about a week later.

Clements-Jeffrey and Smith are suing the city of Springfield, Ohio, two police officers, Magnus, and Absolute Software. They claim that the police violated her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and that Absolute and Magnus intentionally invaded their privacy and violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Stored Communications Act.

The case depends on whether or not Clements-Jeffrey actually knew the laptop was stolen. The defendants had requested a summary judgment, claiming Clements-Jeffrey had no reasonable expectation of privacy because the computer was stolen. They allege that she should have known it had been swiped because of the low price and because the serial number had been scratched off. The judge denied their request.

“It’s one thing to cause a stolen computer to report its IP address or its geographical location in an effort to track it down,” Judge Walter Rice wrote in his decision. “It is something entirely different to violate federal wiretapping laws by intercepting the electronic communications of the person using the stolen laptop.”

Rice said he found reason to believe that Absolute crossed the line, and the trial will be brought before a jury.