Is this scenario legal, A school has a few public computers that can be used. Th

Question

Is this scenario legal,

A school has a few public computers that can be used. The only browsers that are installed are chrome and internet explorer, and the entire network is man-in-the-middled. Keylogging records are kept by the school as well. This school gets the account details of the student in question, and logs into the accounts of the student. The school gets records of things said at school through a chat.

The school argues that because the student logged into the account on their network(s), that they can legally view what is in the accounts, even if they do not own them. On top of this, they also say that they have the authority to view the messages because they were sent within the network of the school.

The student claims that the school's actions are illegal. The account(s) that have been compromised do not belong to the school, and the student says that regardless of what network he accesses them on, they cannot legally obtain and/or use the credentials.

Who is legally correct, the student or the school? What laws dictate as such, and why? For the purposes of this scenario, assume the school is in the US state of Indiana.

Explanation / Answer

I think the basic idea here is "unauthorized access." If the school accessed a student's non-school account, there can be a case made for the school accessing that account without authorization.

There are a couple things that could negate matters:

1.The account is a school account - the school is authorized because it is their account
2.The network access policy included a clause granting the school permission to access accounts that it discovers
3.The school did not log into the account, but had a record of what was transmitted over its network to the account

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