Real privacy laws are needed in the U.S., and now more than ever with the advent of the IoT. I don’t know about any of you, but my family has used #Alexa, Ok Google, and #GoogleHome like it’s the only way to turn on a light. We leave the house and yell, “OK Google, Elvis has left the building” then all our #WeMo lights turn off. A few years back, it was a bit odd when I was going through my Google Pixel 2. I noticed that it was recording every time anyone said, “OK Google” and belted out a myriad of odd commands and even weirder questions…. not just a transcript… but an actual sound bite of what we said and the seconds after/before we said it. This proved to provide some seriously funny flashbacks. Google also recorded the second and third times we had to ask it to set a timer or what the weather was because it couldn’t figure it out the first time we asked. So here we have a record of two weirdos hollering at a device on top of our refrigerator like it had feelings. I couldn’t help but remember those memories when I was reading this chilling article about the authorities attempting to pull the voice data from a murder victim’s Alexa. Specifically, the prosecutor’s office is seeking all “audio recordings, transcribed records, text records and other data” from the victim’s #Echo, via search warrant. To summarize, a man was found dead in his hot tub after a night of binge drinking and playing music on his Alexa. It was thought that the device may contain evidence to solve the case.
At what point are our private lives private if the ABC companies have access to every spoken word in our homes via smart devices? Amazon made a public statement saying that it “will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand” and that Amazon objects to “overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course.” This means nothing if a judge signs a warrant… Being someone who’s been subpoenaed a few times in their professional life, it’s no fun to waste a day being questioned about past events in 5 different ways. With the Alexa/Google Home, the information is all right there, makes me wonder how much is being recorded and filed. #Conspiracy aside, I would absolutely tell my friends and family about this article by Evan Schuman. On one side it could bring this man’s killer to justice, on the other it could set us all up to fall subject to some serious overreach.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3166533/dead-men-may-tell-no-tales-but-iot-devices-do.html