POLITICS students who protested against surveillance cameras at their school have welcomed the global debate it has sparked.

Following our report on the use of Big Brother-styled CCTV in classrooms at Davenant Foundation School in Loughton, hundreds of bloggers from across the globe been flooding online forums to discuss the case's repercussions for civil liberties and privacy.

The story has even been translated into Italian for the Punto Informatico newspaper, and the majority of commentators have sided with author and journalist Henry Porter, who congratulated the students and wrote in his column on Guardian.co.uk: " It is astonishing that schools are spending public money on these surveillance systems, which, whatever [justice secretary, Jack] Straw says, are grooming pupils for life in a society in which they may expect to be watched at every moment of the day."

Sam Goodman, 17, who led a walk-out from lessons, said the response had been "crazy", but hoped it would put more pressure on the school to remove the cameras from two classrooms at the Chester Road school.

He said: "The establishment on CCTV cameras in all areas of society over the past ten years should be of concern to everyone, and we don't think we should just let them creep into classrooms.

"There are about 20 people in our group and we never expected it to generate this much interest. But the fact that it is being debated by so many people can only be a good thing."

Fellow protestor Tom Metcalfe, 18, whose dad is standing as an MP in south Essex, and whose grandmother is a prospective county councillor for Loughton, said: "My main concern was that the school put them up without telling us. When we first saw them it did feel like Big Brother was watching. We felt it was against our rights and liberties. And we are politics students so we were not just going to accept them without debate.

"At first we asked the school to cover them over, but it seemed like they were not taking us seriously. But now they are definitely paying attention."

The school, which is consistently one of the best performers in Essex, said the equipment has been installed to aid teacher training.

The issue has now been reported to UK privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (IOC), which is due to clarify the guidelines before the cameras can be switched on.