A federal class action lawsuit charges that a suburban Philadelphia school district has been spying on students and families via remotely activated webcams in laptops the schools issued to students, Courthouse News reports.

The Associated Press reports that the lawsuit alleges that the cameras captured images of Harriton High School students and their families as they undressed and in other compromising situations.

Courthouse News quotes extensively from the suit, which claims the plaintiffs found out about the cameras when an assistant principal allegedly told a student that authorities believed the student was engaged in improper behavior at home "and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in the laptop."

The Lower Merion School District issued the laptops, outfitted with webcams, to each of its approximately 1,800 high school students, the suit says.

The suit alleges that the student verified through the assistant principal that the school district "in fact has the ability to remotely activate the webcam contained in a student's personal laptop computer issued by the school district at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer."

Superintendent Christopher McGinley did not immediately return a message asking for comment, the Associated Press reports.

(Posted by Doug Stanglin)