My teacher can go through the contents of my cell phone?!

Hey , I am an 8th grader and my assistant principal took my phone away because me and my girlfriend were kissing, and he looked through my pictures/messages. Is this Legal?

So my phone got taken away today. In my last period class i was texting my friend and i put my phone on my skirt. Then the teacher comes near me looks between my legs and tells me to give her my phone. (EW) Anyways, i gave it to her willingly and she told me to go to the office later and to get it from the principal.UUGGHH so i said ok then my cousin came back to her classroom after school with me and we saw two teacher looking through my phone then they saw me and put my phone down. i was so pissed off!! Who said that they had a right to be looking through my text messages?! is this legal?! its an invasion of my privacy! now im left with no phone and my privacy violated. i dont think this is fair! Is it legal for teachers to look through my texts??!! please reply to me let me know what you think about this.

How does school policies over rule the law??? far as im concern if another individual takes another individuals property is called stealing. what if somone said sorry sir you cant drive right here give me your keys or pay me to give it back, naw ef that i would be having a throw down. taking our property is against our 14th admendment then not only that if you go through my privacy through my phone thats against our 4th admendment. so nobody touches it without my permission.

My daughter was caught texting during math class recently. The teacher took her phone. My daughter turned it off before handing it over to the teacher. Her mother went to get the phone. The principle went to get it from her teacher. He turned the phone on in front of my wife and invaded my childs privacy by reading her text out loud. I did a web search and found a law suit case in PA by the ACLU where the PA school district settled out of court for 33,000 dollars instead of having the case decided by a Federal Judge. I have now contacted the GA ACLU about taking up my child's case. It is against the law for any school official to access stored text messages on a students' confiscated cell phone except under specific conditions. Such as, if the student was committing a crime, or there is reasonable belief a crime is going to be committed. My suggestion is for all students whose privacy has been violated this way, request that their parents file a 4th Ammendment lawsuit against the offender. Try not to settle out of court. Get the legal precedent set in a court of law to stop future students' Civil Rights violations from happening. The Supreme Court has already made it clear that students' civil rights do not stop at the schoolhouse door.

Is it legal for teachers to yank the phone ou of your hand violently when you are holding on to it??

Kids should just have a password on their phone and it wouldn’t matter then if the teacher or principal took it

teacher took my phone. Used Eric’s app. programmed it to use a pic of a troll. she never took my phone again.

You stupid little high school idiots. Bottom line, do not use your phone at school, or even bring it to school and this will not be an issue. And yes, legally you have very little rights in a public school, so therefore a teacher can legally read your text. Just like a teacher can read a note written on paper being passed to another student.

Android 2.3.7 user

HOW CAN I PREVENT MY TEACHER FROM TAKING MY PHONE AWAY?

If you don’t want your phone to be confiscated in class, don’t text, record, game, or use the phone in any other way. Understand the rules and regulations of your school district and look through the Code of Conduct – most likely there’s a section in there regarding cell phone usage. For example, the VSB Code of Conduct says something along the lines of, “The Vancouver School Board reserves the right to search any student’s property or locker, provided the student is suspected of owning or selling drugs or alcohol.” Also: “Cell phones must be turned off during class.”

Your Code of Conduct might be different. But I will use the VSB Code as an example. Put your phone on Silent mode while in class. Since I’m using Android, you CANNOT just check the Silent Mode option. You must go into Volume, drag all the sliders to the left, then go into Vibrate, then select Never, then deselect all the additional check marks in the Sound main menu. (It’s a good idea to still check Silent Mode after this.)

Let’s talk about the “reserves the right… drugs or alcohol.” This specified property includes anything you bring to school – that includes your cell phone. It’s not hard to avoid drugs and alcohol. Don’t make friends with the shady guys in school. Never possess cigarettes, alcohol (unless your teacher permits it for cleaning,) or drugs. Don’t ever bring weapons to school, this includes toy guns. If the school doesn’t suspect you of doing anything wrong, they aren’t going to search your phone – not that they could if they wanted to.

HOW TO AVOID YOUR PHONE BEING SEARCHED AFTER CONFISCATION?

First off, put a lock on your phone. For Android, this can be a pattern drawn on a 9*9 grid, a 4-digit PIN, or an alphanumeric password. I don’t use the password because it takes too long to type, but for ALL my devices, I use either a pattern or a PIN. (PIN is more secure. Try doing 9C4+9C5+9C6+9C7+9C8+9C9 on a calculator, and you’ll see a number just slightly less than 1000. This number represents the total possible combinations. You can, however, make 10000 distinct PINs.)

But what if you’re texting or doing something on a certain app, and your teacher grabs the phone out of your hand before you can press the lock button? That’s why I recommend App Lock (aka eLock). I’m not sure if this is available for iOS devices. Let’s say you’re using the Text Messaging app. Your teacher will only be able to view the Messaging app – no other apps you choose to have locked because App Lock will ask for a PIN. (When your teacher makes the mistake of quitting Messaging, he won’t be able to go back in.) If you choose the option Short Exit permitted, and let’s say you’ve used Facebook and now using Messaging, your teacher can look at the Facebook app – but only if you used it x minutes before the Messaging app. X is for the number of minutes you specified in the Short Exit option. I recommend 3 minutes for Short Exit.

Lock at LEAST these apps (if you have them): App Manager, Browser, Calendar (so your teacher won’t be able to see the locations of your upcoming events,) Contacts if you want, Downloads if you download stuff frequently, Email apps, Facebook, File Manager, Instagram, Media playing apps including Gallery and Music, Messaging, Note Pad, Settings, Twitter, and Voice Recorder. Lock up these features: Install/uninstall apps and Force Close eLock. It seems like a lot but you’ll get used to it after a while. Plus, you probably aren’t using all of the apps I mentioned. ALWAYS lock any social media apps and file managers.

HOW CAN I AVOID GETTING IN TROUBLE AFTER I’M FORCED TO GIVE UP MY LOCK?

Remember that your phone can be lost. What you’ll be afraid of is not being able to get back your hardware – it’s that you won’t be able to get back your DATA! Even worse, that sensitive data could easily fall into the wrong hands.

That’s why I say, “Don’t use your phone to do anything illegal.” This includes storing pornography, making illegal transactions, and chatting about weapons, drugs, or alcohol. Back up your data on your phone once every three days. This is as simple as connecting the phone to your computer and copying the files to your hard drive. (This trick only works for Android users; iPhone tends to hide some of its files from Windows File Explorer.) If the file is something you don’t want others to see, and you can live without it dwelling on your phone, delete it from the phone after copying it to your computer. But what if you’ve got data on that phone which isn’t illegal, but needs to stay on the phone, is still private, and would potentially humiliate you if you gave it up?

Keep in mind, you can’t get in trouble for unethical content if the teacher can’t prove it exists.

Two apps are the answer. Choose one that you think would give you the best features: Keepsafe Vault Pro or Hide Pictures & Text Messages. (Make sure you actually read their descriptions in Google Play.) Keepsafe Vault Pro allows you store all the pictures of your choosing into a special vault. What if someone forces you to give up the Keepsafe PIN (it’s actually a good idea to also hide Keepsafe under App Lock)? Use Fake Vault. By typing in a second PIN, you open up a second vault which contains pictures you decide are okay to reveal. Your teacher won’t know you have a real Keepsafe – nor is there any way to quickly prove it. They can’t force you to give up a PIN that might not exist. Hide Pictures & Text Messages can store more types of data, but does not seem to have the Fake Vault feature.

SO WHAT IF MY TEACHER TAKES AWAY MY PHONE AND TAKES IT HOME?

Use AndroidLost. It comes with a ton of features for remote-controlling your phone. You can start alarms, intercept SMS, pop-up on-screen messages, wipe the SD card, and more. When you use another phone to SMS the start alarm command many times in the night, your teacher will get frustrated. WARNING: Only do this if the teacher taking/searching your phone was completely outrageous, as you will get in big trouble. This will only work if the phone is on. After 3 days or so, the battery will die and AndroidLost will work no more.

UNDERSTANDING MORE

First off: When your teacher asks you for your phone, you aren’t voluntarily giving him your phone. He’s threatening you with serious consequences should you disobey. This could range from a detention to an expulsion.

When your teacher asks you for your phone, and your phone does not have a case, take off the cover and remove the battery and SIM card. This will obviously not work if the teacher violently grabs the phone out of your hand. Learn to keep your finger on the lock button, so you can lock the entire phone in time. Even if the teacher manages to get past your unlock screen, App Lock will ask for a PIN again, since App Lock asks you to verify again upon screen lock.

Once you remove the battery and SIM card, the phone is pretty much useless. The teacher won’t be able to operate it without getting an additional battery and charger, and those cost money.

If you’re called into the office to give up your locks, quickly phone your parents with the office phone. (If you and your parents speak another language, use the foreign language so no one understands what you’re going to say.) You should have backed up your data in case of situations like this. You will tell your parents to get their phone and quickly text the AndroidLost command to your phone to remote wipe the data. (You still have a backup copy of the data on your PC anyway.) Try to stall the teacher/principal for at least a minute by saying you need to go to the bathroom or something like that.

First of all, i would not give my phone to a teacher PERIOD. If they ask for it, i’d just apologise for the distraction and put it in my pocket. They cant leagally make you give it to them since they are not a law enforcement officer with a search warrent. If they touch you if you, that is assault and i would pull my phone out and dial 911 in the middle of class and there is nothing the teacher can do about it. School polocies are not the law people! So dont let them make you think you have to give your phone to them.