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Police in Bentonville, Arkansas would love to know whether an Amazon Echo picked up the sounds of a crime. Amazon isn't playing along. As reported in the Washington Post, the investigation highlights the privacy issues around increasingly popular smart-home products.
The Amazon Echo in question was present in a home where a murder took place in November. Victor Collins was found dead in a hot tub after a social event that went late into the previous night.
Police found the Echo among many other smart devices in the home, but the Echo is the only one that records what you say. Specifically, it's always listening for your wake-up command of "Amazon" or "Alexa," which cues it to start recording. The recording includes a snippet of what you said before, as well as the command that follows. The device sends your command to cloud servers, where your speech is interpreted and a response is sent back through the device.
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