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Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

bbc.com

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Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#51

Post by skocznymroczny »

kaino128 wrote: post #11

Can you call emergency services via Amazon Echo? I've read on a car forum I'm part of about someone who was working on their vehicle without jack stands and got trapped when their jack slipped. They used Siri to call their wife and jack the car back up. They probably would have died without it. I can easily forsee a future where consumers ask companies for voice assistants that turn on automatically when they detect…

For all you know, it could be recording all the time, and since it's a closed device, you can't prove otherwise.

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#52

Post by maxerickson »

SuperGent wrote: post #8
andrewingram wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels a bit weird. Why does a defendant consenting change anything? Presumably if they were asleep as claimed, they're basically consenting to something that's unrelated to themselves.

That was my first thought. Why should the defendant have a say in what evidence can be collected? Did the Feds ask if they could take DNA samples from the scene, for example?

In this case it is because Amazon resisted the request from the legal system for the data.

The owner of the device giving consent to Amazon to release the data avoids having to play out the legal process of obtaining the data (it's likely the request would eventually have succeeded).

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#53

Post by orless »

lucaspiller wrote: post #36
orless wrote: post #27

> Amazon has agreed to hand over data from an Amazon Echo that may have been operating as an alleged murder took place, after the defendant consented. A much more interesting question is if Amazon would have released the data without the defendants conset.

Well Amazon actually refused at first, even when presented with warrants requesting the data, saying that they didn't see how the data would be relevant. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39063113

I know that, I'm just pointing out that handing the data with persons consent is absolutely nothing extraordinary.

Many people (also in this thread) are worried and unplug Alexa because of these news. Some accuse Amazon of putting up a fight for PR only.

From my point of view, these news add nothing substantial to the Alexa customer privacy debate. It is unclear if Amazon would have (finally) handed the data over without customers consent. It is unclear how far would Amazon go fighting for customer privacy.

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#54

Post by davrosthedalek »

d3ckard wrote: post #14
cmdrfred wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't a jurisdiction without 5th amendment protections be unconstitutional?

We do not all live in the USA.

Most jurisdictions have similar provisions. If not, the defendant is screwed anyway.

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#55

Post by waisbrot »

clarkevans wrote: post #6
andrewingram wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels a bit weird. Why does a defendant consenting change anything? Presumably if they were asleep as claimed, they're basically consenting to something that's unrelated to themselves.

Even if they were sound asleep; what Echo recorded may be incredibly damning - a muffled voice, screams, no evidence of someone sleeping nor of an intruder, yet enough to pull a Jury's emotions that a conviction is needed and the death penalty is merited.

Yes, this sounds like agreeing to a police interview without your lawyer present -- there's almost no chance that it will help you (are they going to hear "Alexa, tell this person who is not James to stop murdering me"?) and basically any audio they hear that's not someone else confessing to the crime can be used against him in court.

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#56

Post by joezydeco »

npongratz wrote: post #46
shshhdhs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can only reveal voice data IF the victim said "Alexa" when the crime was taking place. If the victim didn't say "Alexa" that day, then there's nothing to reveal. Your example about encryption doesn't make sense in the context of the Echo.

I'm not certain there exists nothing to reveal. Is there a technical limitation of the system that prevents or avoids recording of "non-'Alexa'" audio? Or do I just trust Amazon when they say their alway-on device only records when triggered with the magic word? As I think about it, I'd ask the same regarding the voice-controllable phone in my pocket. FWIW, I don't trust the devices, because their operations are out…

From looking at the internals, there's technically nothing that prevents uploading all audio constantly to AWS.

Practically, it would be unwieldy to have 10,000,000 devices sending audio to 10,000,000 audio decoding and processes 24 hours a day nonstop.

You'd also see a huge bandwidth hit at your ISP, which would certainly kill future adoptions if the word got out.

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#57

Post by vidarh »

wyldfire wrote: post #47

This is a non-issue. The audio Amazon receives is from only-just-barely-before the wakeword up to and through the command or timeout expiration. Yes, it's possible that the defendants cat meowed right before the murder and it sounded like "Alexa". But it seems incredibly unlikely. Prosecutors are just trying to cover every base but the likelihood that this will yield anything is very low.

Just a few minutes ago, my Alexa triggered on a phone conversation someone was having across the room. It happens fairly regularly. While I agree it's unlikely to have caught any specific incident, do this often enough and sooner or later something will show up - the recognition is not particularly precise.

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#58

Post by rayiner »

ghshephard wrote: post #31
saycheese wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you delete the data, prior to getting the notice to produce the data and it wasn't deleted in anticipation of such a notice, sure the court could hold you in contempt, but legally you've done nothing wrong. You cannot easily make a third random third-party delete your data.

You might put yourself in a worse position if the court compels you to produce the data, but now you can't. You better be very certain that you are able to prove that you deleted the data prior to any notice, or you might find yourself in for a long jail stay. This is what a lot of people overlook - when the court compels you to produce evidence, or ill gotten gains, saying ,"I can't" - isn't a legal defense.

It depends. If you delete all data after a year pursuant to a well established practice, the court should not be able to hold you in contempt. But if your explanation smacks of destruction of evidence, then you've got a problem. Remember, it's not about what you did, in fact (the judge and the prosecutor can't know that). It's about what the circumstantial suggests you did.

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#59

Post by andrepd »

verelo wrote: post #44
koolba wrote: post #3

This should be a lesson to people who don't understand the distinction between "can't" and "won't". If you're running things yourself and control the encryption keys required to access your data, then your service provider can't be compelled to release your data as it's not possible[1][2]. If you're delegating all of that to your service provider and they have access to the raw data, then you are putting all your tru…

Makes me think in future cases when someone says in court "I do not recall", we are going to see Google Home / Echo data being called into play. As someone with 3 google home devices in the house, I feel like my feara I've been suppressing are all coming true.

Then why did you buy 3 Google home devices?

Re: Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents

#60

Post by vidarh »

orless wrote: post #53
lucaspiller wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Amazon actually refused at first, even when presented with warrants requesting the data, saying that they didn't see how the data would be relevant. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39063113

I know that, I'm just pointing out that handing the data with persons consent is absolutely nothing extraordinary. Many people (also in this thread) are worried and unplug Alexa because of these news. Some accuse Amazon of putting up a fight for PR only. From my point of view, these news add nothing substantial to the Alexa customer privacy debate. It is unclear if Amazon would have (finally) handed the data over wit…

It's newsworthy in this case because of the initial refusal.

Not because it adds anything substantial to the privacy debate, but because it means we won't get to see if their argument would be held up by the court.

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