Question

Amazon designed Echo devices to listen and respond to voice commands. But in 2016 police in Arkansas sought the audio recordings of Victor Collins to help them solve his murder. As the case unfolded, it became clear that the device listens to, and uploads to cloud servers, a variety of audio inputs including (the police hoped) incriminating evidence that could help them solve the case.

Amazon refused to provide the recordings arguing that "personal privacy" was more important. The defense attorney stated, "You have an expectation of privacy in your home, and I have a big problem that law enforcement can use technology that advances our quality of life against us." Additional issues were the reliability of what might have been recorded, who recorded it, and the accuracy of information.

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Do some research and obtain additional information about this case. Based on your research do you think Amazon should be forced to provide Echo recordings or are privacy rights more important? Justify your position with arguments to support it. (Include web links)

Answer 1

Sol. This Arkansas's murder case was happened in 2016 . The whole incident was happened while the Amazon device named as Echo was on . So the prosecutors were asking to get the Echo device recording for the evidence .

While in starting Amazon decline to give these recordings but later on they provided it. But that was not enough as an evidence and recently the case closed and suspect released due to lack of evidence.

The concern over privacy is now that Amazon has provided the recordings in this case and the device automatically records every time the voices it listen . These are the below points for this scenario -

1. As per the Amazon privacy policy , Echo device only start listening the voice when someone says 'Alexa' word . Then this recording send to the processor as a command and it store in the cloud servers.
2. The privacy is important here as one can say anything even in just mischief then also it will recorded and if allowed can be use as a wrong evidence for the person.
3. The data can be more private such as credentials of credit card , pin etc . Which can be misuse in this situation.
4. As per Amazon Echo privacy policy the device can store voice recordings for it's better recognition and improvements.
5. While national security concerns then it's really helpful if such recordings help to get some evidence , still what is the reliability of such evidence as anyone can record also such things to fool others.

On the basis of the above points , it seems that privacy is more important and Amazon Echo should not be forced to provide anyone's private details such as recordings.