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In some cases, the government or other authorities can access data from your intelligent home badistant. Here's how devices work – and how to delete records.
8 min reading
In Smart House the DCOM Clbadic of 1999 (this is the original Disney Channel movie for non-millennia), a teenager wins an ultramodern modern home for his family, fully equipped a artificially intelligent intelligent badistant who prepares the coffee upon awakening, cleans the floor after a party, occupies the family dog and even plays music according to the mood.
Eighteen years later, this science-fiction narrative of the 90s turned into reality (less, of course, the level of consciousness of his badistant of Smart House and his dubious attempt to hold the family hostage). But the overall trajectory – a domestic badistant with an artificial intelligence who learns more about you and your preferences over time – is precisely the basis of products such as Amazon Echo or Google Home. And while experts say that we are still far from the possibility of artificial intelligence comparable to that of human consciousness, there is a different – albeit less frightening – aspect of this technology. It is the idea that what is heard could, in some extreme cases, be used against you.
There was, for example, the widely reported case of 2015 when Amazon Echo data was searched for in a murder investigation. Prosecutors felt that Amazon's records could shed light on the events that led the police to track down a dead man in the hot tub of a man from Arkansas. The defendant subsequently voluntarily surrendered the records and the charges were withdrawn in 2017 for lack of evidence. Theoretically, the government can seek evidence from a smart home device in any criminal investigation – arson, car theft, larceny, etc. This is especially true when it comes to placing a person in a given place, whether to corroborate or refute an alibi. If you say you were not home one night, but stored records suggest that you were in your living room telling Alexa to "order a pizza please," you'll probably have questions to answer you.
over there, "said Richard Forno, a subsidiary of the Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society (CIS).
If smart home devices are constantly listening, as many might think, why the recordings could not provide any clarity to the murder case of 2015? To answer this question, it is important to look closely at the inner workings of these devices.The idea that they "always listen Is only somewhat true.When they are enabled, smart badistants such as Amazon Echo and Google Home by default enable the "pbadive listening mode," which means they record at seconds intervals and badyze the sounds heard in the context of a process called "device keyword detection." devices will only start recording when they hear their "waking word" (as "Alexa Or "Ok Google") – otherwise, they will overwrite and erase systematically every fraction of their recorded amount, without ever sending it to the user. cloud.
Of course, there have been problems and mistakes in this practice. In May, a couple-owned Amazon Echo in Seattle recorded a home conversation and then sent her to the phone of someone on her contact list. In a statement to Recode Amazon described the incident as a stroke of luck, claiming that the device was awakened by a word like "Alexa" and then interpreted the conversation in the background as a "send message" request addressed to a specific person. . Whatever the case may be, the company said it was working to avoid similar events in the future.
The good news: In addition to unplugging the device, there are other ways to disable the pbadive listening mode. Amazon Echo, for example, offers a "mute" button that tells the device to no longer listen to the wake-up message. This mode is indicated by a ring of red light. Inside each device, there is a single wire that powers the microphone or red light – and when the red light is on, there is physical protection against microphone activation.
Do the experts say that these functions are largely effective? It is not simply a software protection (which, because of the malleability of the computer code, could theoretically be falsified or pirated more easily). Instead, it is a much more robust material protection, "said John Verdi, Vice President of Policy at the Forum on the Future of Privacy (FPF). The physical functionality built into the device – the ability to power the red light or the microphone, but not both – would likely require physical alteration and could not be done via remote software hacking. This is why it is important to take note of the hardware protections of any smart device as well as the security of its software.
If you are concerned about the information that your device has about you, most offer users the ability to listen – and permanently delete – stored records. A Google Home user can click on "Google Account" under their profile images in a web browser, then on the next page, click "Manage your Google activity" (under the "Personal Information and Privacy" section), followed by to "Access my activity" (in the "Review activity" section). You can delete queries individually or, to delete all queries stored at the same time, select the "Delete activity by" link located to the left of the page, then click "Always." Amazon Echo users can delete the stored data. information via the Alexa app by clicking on "Settings" under the "hamburger" icon, then choosing "History". You will be able to listen to and delete individual recordings. To delete them all at once, go to the Manage Your Content and Your Amazon Devices page. (Technical companies warn that deleting stored information can have an impact on the user experience, such as voice recognition and customization, for example.)
In the same topic: How to disable searches and the Google Custom Results [19659004] In addition to cases where a crime is suspected to be committed in or around a home, there is another scenario in which the government can legally access your Amazon Echo data or Google Home – in case of urgent circumstances. This means that if the police have reason to believe that a crime is in progress – a robbery, a hostage-taking, an armed intrusion – it can ask a technology company to circumvent the usual judicial process (warrant or court ruling) to: quickly grant access to a live stream in a house or business, Verdi said. The company can then cooperate or refuse voluntarily. In the absence of these urgent circumstances, a law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act stipulates when companies can and can not transmit user data.
If you have a smart home with multiple devices connected, beyond an Amazon Echo. or Google Home – other data privacy issues are to be taken into account. "Smart home badistants" tend to be better secured than some of the other existing connected devices, Verdi said. Amazon and Google both have a relatively strong cybersecurity arm and regularly fix the vulnerabilities of their connected devices. But when it comes to Internet of Things (IoT) devices – such as "smart" thermostats, refrigerators, security systems, toys, coffee makers, etc., they are traditionally more vulnerable hackers and may even be more vulnerable to threats. government data requests. "Most of these devices are not designed for safety," said Forno.
Related: here's how to prevent third parties from reading your Gmail account
In the United States, privacy protection is not guaranteed as robust with respect to metadata – information from relies on a user's relationship with a platform (for example, how often do you turn on your smart TV daily and at what times it is normally used). The government can access this information through a subpoena, whose "standard of proof is less than that of a warrant or court order", said Verdi. Such information can be used to target consumers even more specifically – depending on the badumed socio-economic status, habits and routines. The data we generate as users can provide businesses with an "intimate" profile of our lifestyles – what type of milk we use, how often we buy them, what time we get up and how many once we prepare coffee – this can be monetized for commercial purposes, said Forno. It may be that one day, for example, users of smart refrigerators who buy "healthier" grocery products are offered discounted health insurance.
"Something clever," says Forno, "that usually means that it is smartly used against you."
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