A school authority has agreed to pay $US610,000 ($621,000) after admitting it spied on pupils in their homes through the cameras on their laptop computers.

About 56,000 pictures of more than 40 pupils were taken by a remote tracking system controlled by officials from the Lower Merion School District in Philadelphia.

School in compensation claim for spying on students. Credit:Mayu Kanamori

The pictures, which included at least one of a pupil asleep, were taken in an effort to find missing school Apple laptops.

The tracking system, which allowed officials to look out from the webcams, was sometimes left on for months after the computers were found, an official inquiry found.