Ohio teacher sues computer tracking company for sex spying (BLOG)

When Susan Clements-Jeffrey struck up a webcam chat with her boyfriend, she assumed — like all but the most paranoid among us would — that the interaction was entirely private. Little did she know that her laptop was actually stolen property being aggressively monitored by Absolute Software, a private security company that specializes in tracking stolen computers.

The odd tale began when Clements-Jeffrey, an Ohio substitute teacher, purchased the used laptop from one of her students for a thrifty $60 in 2008. While that probably wasn't the best-advised idea to begin with, Clements-Jeffrey claims to have had no idea the laptop was actually stolen — the student had bought it for $40 at a bus station and made a quick buck by passing it off to the naive instructor.

What Clements-Jeffrey probably didn't see coming is that the laptop was property of Ohio's Clark County School District. The school, through a contract with Absolute Software, installs hidden tracking software on all of its machines to assist in recovery in the case of theft. Absolute's software, known as LoJack for laptops, gives the company total remote access to the computer's data, which it records. LoJack is a highly-rated security service — and an entirely legal one — but in this case, Absolute is under fire for potentially violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Stored Communications Act, which details guidelines for virtual privacy.

Had Absolute merely tracked the stolen laptop through its unique IP address, there wouldn't be much to debate. Instead, through LoJack, Absolute's theft officer Kyle Magnus began recording the unsuspecting teacher's keystrokes, web habits, and even snapped three sexually explicit screenshots of Clements-Jeffrey's video chat with her boyfriend. Magnus passed this data on to the Springfield, Ohio police department. Clements-Jeffrey and her partner are currently suing Absolute, Magnus, the city of Springfield, and two police officers for violating their Fourth Amendment rights.

LoJack isn't the only security software out there capable of recording images remotely. Another company, GadgetTrak, employs a stolen laptop's built-in webcam to collect data on a suspected thief after the computer is reported as stolen, but that information is transmitted directly to the property's owner rather than to a security's group's servers. While most gadget recovery anecdotes end with a victim having the stolen goods returned to them thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this murky case is treading some ethically-ambiguous water while legal proceedings continue.