Police suspect the virtual home assistant may hold clues to a murder—but Amazon is refusing to help.
Police in Arkansas are attempting to obtain data from an Amazon Echo device, suspecting the virtual home assistant may hold clues to a murder.
According to a report in The Information, police seized the Echo device as part of an investigation into the suspected murder of Victor Collins, who died in a hot tub on November 22, 2015, at the home of James Bates in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Amazon Echo home assistants contain microphones that constantly listen for trigger words that activate the device, such as its preset name, Alexa.
A warrant was secured by authorities, according to The Information, and Amazon was ordered to provide any audio logs that may be stored on its servers from the Echo device owned by Bates. Amazon refused to provide any data from the Echo.
“Amazon will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on us,” Amazon said in a statement. “Amazon objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course.”
The matter has once again raised privacy issues surrounding personal devices, similar to the case of the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the December 2015 San Bernadino attack. In that case, Apple rejected a court order to help the FBI break into the iPhone, saying to do so would set a “dangerous precedent.” The phone was eventually unlocked by a third-party company.
“You have an expectation of privacy in your home, and I have a big problem that law enforcement can use the technology that advances our quality of life against us,” Bates’ attorney Kimberley Weber said.
“Of course, there’s also the question of how reliable information is from smart home devices. Accuracy can be an issue for any number of IoT [Internet of Things] gadgets. However, an audio recording would seemingly be a solid piece of evidence, if released.”
http://europe.newsweek.com/amazon-echo-may-have-overheard-murder-536585?rm=eu
-It might be the world’s first murder solved by artificial intelligence.. Police in Bentonville, Arkansas have served the online retail giant Amazon a search warrant for recording that might have been captured by the company digital assistant Alexa.
-And that was during the night of a murder.. Here to give us details about this case and how these devices could change the future of solving crimes?
-Molly I first briefly outline what happened in November of 2015 to Georgia police officer Victor Collins and why police think Amazon digital assistant might be the key to solving this crime?
-This is such an interesting case. Police in Bentonville found Victor Collins dead faced up a backyard hot tub. They were immediately suspicious because there were signs of a struggle including bruises and blood on Collins face and around the hot tub. The patio also appeared to have been hosed down with the homeowner James Bates claimed that his death was an accidental drowning. He told police he woke up and found Collins that way saying he’d gone to bed the night before while Collins and another guy stayed in hot tub. The police didn’t believe the story. They believe Collins died after a fight while being strangled and held underwater. Bates was the only person home at the time. They gathered evidence including the Amazon echo which is as you know a digital assistants device that was playing music near the hot tub when police got there. It has the capability of recording audio and police served Amazon with a search warrant hoping that the device might reveal some clues to the crime.
-Is this audio stored in what’s been Amazon’s response to this request? It’s kind of creepy when you think, you may have a device elsewhere hear you everything what’s the response?
-Yes it is kind of creepy.. The echo as you mentioned in other devices like it are always listening through a microphone. Because they’re waiting for a voice command they want you to tell them what to do. Well it records those commands and in some cases other audio it thanks to the command to the device itself is where it’s stored as well as to a cloud service. Even if it’s unlikely that the echo captured evidence related to Colin’s death police wanted to check it. But Amazon has refused to comply with their warrant saying the company objects to quote inappropriate demands related to customer information. It’s important to them to protect their customers privacy.
-Well that should concern anybody that first of all they don’t want to give this up because that’s telling you that maybe they are for recording some information that we aren’t aware of. But let me ask you this.. Are we likely to see these kinds of devices play a role in solving crime in the future what what’s your take on that Molly?
-It’s going to be interesting I don’t see any law enforcement agencies stopping asking for this information. Because it’s come up before in other situations. But it’s going to be an uphill battle for law enforcement. Because the big issue here is privacy. Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and others that market these digital devices insist that they’re not always recording. But not everybody believes that. Other law enforcement agencies have a petition tech companies for information related to crimes including terrorism but these techgiants are not giving him anyway. There taking a stand against these warranties request and in fact they’re taking steps to make it even more difficult to access personal information on a variety of tech devices even with face with a warrant so it will continue to come up that it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.
