3 ms·
I remember when law officers wanted the Alexa recording at the home of a murder. Amazon did not give it up. I always thought that data was meaningless if it ta
by nashashmi 2y ago
I remember when law officers wanted the Alexa recording at the home of a murder. Amazon did not give it up.
I always thought that data was meaningless if it takes a person hours to go through it. Now we have AI. Which means the data is not meaningless. And the always on feature actually means something. And that means all your data at home can be at someone's fingertips ... because say they are looking for ways to make your home and government more efficient?
- Aurornis 2y agoI think your memory is mistaken. Amazon will give up recordings when legally obligated to do so, because that’s the law. They can’t choose to ignore the law. However, Alexa and similar devices don’t actually record everything. Amazon doesn’t get a recording of everything the devices hear. They have to be triggered by the wake word (or possible a false positive). Here’s a case where the Alexa command was used as part of the case, though it didn’t have recordings of the actual crime: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11899217/Murderer-jailed-life-voice-recordings-Amazon-device-helped-bring-justice.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11899217/Murderer-j...
- IncreasePosts 2y agoAlexa only sends network data when the hotword is heard...how exactly does that happen during a murder?
- deadmutex 2y agoI don't know the specifics of this case, but maybe the investigators just asked in case there was an accidental trigger, or a real trigger etc. Seems reasonable for the detective to attempt to turn over any stone they can to aid the investigation.
- RestartKernel 2y agoWith an unfortunately named victim, I suppose.
- waltbosz 2y agoI think if an Alexa device were present in a home in which a person named Alexa lived, they would reconfigure the wake word. A more likely hypothetical would be one in which the murder was named was Alexa, and the surprised victim exclaimed, "Alexa, what are you doing here!?!"
- plorg 2y agoI don't know about Alexa specifically, but I've seen stories where the police requested Ring videos from a neighbor's house, including cameras inside the neighbor's house that they could not have known of without Amazon's assistance, that were not pointed outside, and even, if I remember correctly, one that was in the neighbor's business in a completely different location, where the justification pointedly identified the neighbor as not a suspect, but Amazon gave over this video anyways.
- tharkun__ 2y agoHow is that weird of the police to ask tho? I would say it would be standard practice to go check all neighbors with sightline for any kind of recording. Local or cloud based. No assistance from anyone needed to go ask.
- scarface_74 2y agoUntil last year, Amazon gave police video from Ring without a warrant. https://www.wired.com/story/ring-police-rfa-tool-shut-down/ https://www.wired.com/story/ring-police-rfa-tool-shut-down/
- otterley 2y agoThere’s a difference, though. Alexa’s recordings are made inside your house. Ring videos are taken outside your house. This distinction matters both as a fact and in the law.
- acdha 2y agoAmazon has given police recordings: https://apnews.com/general-news-343c0f5ed0884d1eb1dbe911e8ce3dee https://apnews.com/general-news-343c0f5ed0884d1eb1dbe911e8ce... https://broward.us/2023/07/18/amazons-alexa-is-surprise-witness-in-broward-murder-trial/ https://broward.us/2023/07/18/amazons-alexa-is-surprise-witn...