School forced to remove surveillance cameras

A secondary school in Prague has been forced to remove surveillance cameras from classrooms after students protested against invasion of privacy. The Josef Skvorecky Literary Academy had cameras installed all over the premises allegedly for security reasons, to prevent bullying and vandalism. The move evoked a storm of protests from both students and parents who said that cameras in the classroom were an unacceptable invasion of privacy. The Office for Protection of Private Data and the Ombudsman backed the protests, especially when it emerged that the school intended to keep the recordings for a certain period of time.