Amazon Echo Speaker data wanted in police investigation

[engine]

We all know about recording equipment listening to conversations.
it seems the police want the recordings from an amazon Echo device in an investigation.

[bbc.co.uk...]

[justpassing]

Interesting... a side effect will be to discover how much this kind of device is recording, and for how long ... are they GDPR compliant? :)

[lucy24]

A judge in the US has asked Amazon to hand over audio recordings from an Amazon Echo ...
...
Amazon said it would not hand over any data about the device without a legally-binding instruction.

Well, which is it? Did the judge pick up the telephone and orally ask Amazon for the recordings, making him/her an idiot ... or did the judge issue a subpoena which Amazon blithely assumes can't apply to them, making them idiots? I’m having trouble coming up with a third interpretation.

[engine]

Putting my tin foil hat on, makes me wonder how much is being recorded. Obviously, if you say the key word to start the echo, it'll save the search or the request.
I would imagine that anyone buying one of these, or any other speaker or tv with a microphone, would have been made aware of the implications.

I do wonder what the recordings will uncover, in this instance.

I'm intrigued.

[NickMNS]

Taking the tin foil hat off. Would it not be possible that the police simply would like to know what was being searched for. A common tactic in criminal investigation is reviewing a suspect's search history. In this case the search history would be coming from Alexa instead of Amazon.com directly.

[RhinoFish]

In my Amazon account, I can drill down into Alexa Privacy, and see the voice recordings in history.
I don't know about passive listening, but if you wake her, and ask her something, it's saved.

Ask her... "Alexa, beam me up". Hahaha!

[engine]

Absolutely, the search history is a big give-away, and it may be revealing as to who made the search.

> "Alexa, beam me up".

I'll try that when i'm next near someone with a speaker.

[graeme_p]

@lucy24, I notice that Amazon are not quoted as saying that they were not handing over the data. It looks like a generic answer.

[graeme_p]

From this [theregister.co.uk...] it looks as though

1. Amazon refused to give the recording to the prosecution with a court order
2. At the time the article was written the court order has been issued by the judge
3. At the time the article was written the order had not been served on Amazon

[LifeinAsia]

Did the judge pick up the telephone and orally ask Amazon for the recordings

Obviously what happened-
Judge: "Alexa, send me the recordings for [person] made on [date]."
Alexa: "I'm sorry, but I am unable to do that without a court order."
Judge: "I'm going to tell the media Amazon refused my request!"