OPINION: Police want Amazon Echo to help solve a murder. Should it?
As part of an ongoing murder investigation, police and prosecutors in Bentonville, Arkansas have issued a warrant for Amazon to hand over any records or audio recordings from an Amazon Echo belonging to James Andrew Bates — the suspected killer.
In addition to the Echo, police say Bates had several smart home devices including an electronic water meter, from which they have obtained records from the night in question.
The request for stored information on the Echo, as well as the examination of the water meter, have led to larger questions about privacy and how that relates to our increasingly intelligent electronic devices. Specifically, as everyday lives become more intertwined with a growing web of connected electronic devices, should the information gathered by these devices be used in a criminal investigation?