Should set some interesting precedent. If this isn't child pornography, spying, unlawful wiretapping, etc... then I don't know what is.
Do you have a citation for that, out of interest.
It's considered something of a myth within LE and I wasn't aware a case like that actually existed.
I also recall a case of a teacher whose school computer had malware that ended up displaying porn in the classroom who was arrested and faced up to 40 years in jail. I'm pretty sure she was acquitted.
After the initial conviction was set aside, after 4 delays in sentencing, "[...] facing health problems, Amero pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct, paying a $100 fine and losing her teaching license, just to settle the case."
I'd always be interested to see if it actually happened though - it would be useful research.
Mostly it is very easy to see the CP activity (dont forget were not just talking about images on the HDD here but actual activity indicative of behavior). If it were downloaded all together, with no references in, say, web history etc, no thumbnails and nothing in the cache files (which are FULL of rich information) then it would ring alarm bells :)
Eventually even the most elaborate malware will make a mistake with activity that is not "normal" - and the investigation is intensive enough to pick this up.
Placing a camera in someone's room is akin to placing it in a bathroom, because at some point someone's getting naked and how a group of adults didn't comprehend this speaks worlds about the quality of education provided by the school in question.
There's also the very concerning matter that 50% of the students are likely male, and ~90% of males access porn through the internet. This means that 45% of students likely used this computer to look at porn, which likely means at some point 45% of the students had their penis' out in front of the laptop in question, which has a remotely activated camera on it. This isn't even discussing the 1/3 of women who access porn via the internet. This isn't even discussing the fact that a percentage of these students likely used the cameras for video-sex with their partners (personal experience on that one).
I'm sorry this is either gross ignorance that should be as severely punished as possible or it's exactly as bad as this thread of comments has taken it, and it should be as severely punished as possible. Regardless the potential was there to use the system for child pornography, and if there are no records that any compromising pictures were taken, then the school and its board members got exceptionally lucky.
Since the camera was issued to accompany the student throughout their daily life: bedroom, changing the diaper of a toddler they are babysitting, bathroom, etc.