Amazon Refuses To Divulge Echo Recording To Arkansas Cops During Murder Investigation
12-30-2016, 05:49 PM
I have an Alexa at my place - it's useful for things like setting timers when cooking, converting tablespoons to cups, random stuff like that. And it can be used to control smart devices (lights, thermostats etc) which can be handy also. As homes get smarter I think things will get more integrated and useful.
From the privacy standpoint, I've long since resigned myself to the realities of having a smart phone that is much more dangerous. The smart home devices - Alexa, Google Home etc - are processing the commands using cloud processing, which means they aren't recording everything you say. It would be prohibitive to send every word recorded by every Alexa in the world back to Amazon (or Google etc) for processing and storage. This is why they won't respond until the appropriate "wake word" is detected.
So if this guy was dumb enough to ask "Alexa, how do I fake a drowning?" then he had better hope Amazon won't divulge his Alexa history (and I saw nothing in that article to suggest there's any reasonable suspicion or that this is anything other than a fishing expedition by the police).
As for the broader privacy implications (i.e. the government hacking your Alexa type device to constantly record) my personal feeling is they could already do it with my cell phone which follows me around almost anywhere. If you aren't concerned about the privacy implications of the microphone on your smart phone, you shouldn't be overly concerned with the implications of your Alexa.
From the privacy standpoint, I've long since resigned myself to the realities of having a smart phone that is much more dangerous. The smart home devices - Alexa, Google Home etc - are processing the commands using cloud processing, which means they aren't recording everything you say. It would be prohibitive to send every word recorded by every Alexa in the world back to Amazon (or Google etc) for processing and storage. This is why they won't respond until the appropriate "wake word" is detected.
So if this guy was dumb enough to ask "Alexa, how do I fake a drowning?" then he had better hope Amazon won't divulge his Alexa history (and I saw nothing in that article to suggest there's any reasonable suspicion or that this is anything other than a fishing expedition by the police).
As for the broader privacy implications (i.e. the government hacking your Alexa type device to constantly record) my personal feeling is they could already do it with my cell phone which follows me around almost anywhere. If you aren't concerned about the privacy implications of the microphone on your smart phone, you shouldn't be overly concerned with the implications of your Alexa.