When is lying acceptable?

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I have a high school daughter who is a government scholar for a top science high school in my country. They are being housed in the school dormitory under the supervision of a dorm manager (DM), who makes sure that these kids abide of the school's and dorm's rules and regulation. This year I bought my daughter a laptop so she can use it for her school work and researches. However,there is this dorm's laptop policy, that students can only use their laptops on a specified time (in other words on limited time only)and they cannot keep their laptops in their rooms and they have to deposit their laptops to the dorm manager (DM) as well after use ---(what a stupid policy). What happens is that, many deposited laptops get broken and the DM won't take the responsibility for that. My daughter does not want to deposit her laptop because she fears that her laptop will have the same fate as those other broken laptops kept by the DM. She can be assured that her laptop is safe and better taken cared of if she keeps it in her possession than depositing it. In short, she did not declare her laptop so that she does not have to deposit it to the DM. However, no matter how she keeps that secret, the DM finally found out about that laptop and reprimanded her for that. At first she was asked if she owns the laptop. Her first impulse was to deny. Then she probably realized immediately, that no matter how much she denies it, the truth would still prevail. So she admitted possession of the laptop. Because of that incident the DM issued her an Incident Report (IR) for disobeying the laptop policy and for lying. She is a contender for Dean's Lister and an honor student. A student with an IR automatically is disqualified to become a Dean's Lister. As the parent, I was called during the hearing. I know, my daughter lied and broke the rule. As a parent, we should not tolerate such actions, morally speaking, because we know lying to be morally wrong. However, I understand my daughter's motivation behind the actions. Others may expect me not to tolerate it. But I oppose so. I am in a dilemma. I also do not want to be branded as a bad parent. Could you share your thoughts? If you were me, what would you do?