Not too long ago it was discovered that Amazon’s Echo device could have potentially “overheard” a murder which is why law enforcement has requested for access to its recordings. However Amazon has resisted their requests and have claimed that this is because Alexa is protected by the First Amendment.
However interestingly enough it seems that Amazon has decided to abandon their legal battle to fight for Alexa’s rights. This is because the defendant has since agreed to hand over the data contained on his Echo speaker to the authorities, and we guess Amazon decided if that was the case they needn’t pursue the case anymore, although if they had pursued it and won it would have set a rather interesting precedent for future such cases.
According to Amazon’s argument prior to them dropping the case, the company claimed that thanks to a 2014 case in which Google search results were classified as “free speech”, the same could be said for Alexa. The reason why the police weren’t able to retrieve the data through more conventional means was because they lacked compelling argument, but we guess with Bates now offering to hand it over, everyone’s problems have been solved.
In the meantime it is unclear if Bates’ Echo might contain any pertinent information with regards to solving the case.
Filed in . Read more about Alexa, Amazon, Legal and Privacy.