Amazon's Privacy Policies may be hindering Homicide Information
- Current Events
- Nov 18, 2018
- 2 min read
On January 27th, 2017, Christine Sullivan and Jenna Pelligrini were stabbed to death in Christine's boyfriend's kitchen, in Farmington, New Hampshire, U.S. When police officers attended the scene on January 29th, they collected the Alexa on the countertop and classified it as important evidence.
Dean Smoronk, Christine Sullivan's boyfriend, lived in the house with her. He had travelled to Florida for a few days and came back home on January 29th. Perturbated by the bloody crime scene and worried he could´t find Christine, he called 911. When the police arrived, they investigated the place and found the two dead bodies under a tarp.
The prime suspect is Timothy Verrill, friend of Smoronk and Sullivan that had previously lived with both at Smoronk's place. Verrill, and probably Smoronk, were also doing some drug trafficking operations in the house. The morning of the killing, Verrill called Smoronk to tell him that he suspected of Pelligrini being a police informant.
That same day, surveillance cameras caught Verrill at the house, trying to cover the cameras before turning them down. He then was caught buying cleaning products around town. Besides his weird behaviours between the 27th and 29th of January, he also had two stress breakdowns that sent him to the hospital.
It seems as if Verrill was the killer, but there's still not concrete evidence that identifies him as guilty. However, there could be a witness in the middle of this horrible case-Amazon´s Alexa.
You might know that Alexa´s Echo records most of the things that happen around it for it to be able to carry out the errands you ask it to do, at least when you pronounce the "magic words". That´s why police officers collected the Alexa on the kitchen countertop as important evidence, because Alexa is a witness of the crime.
If Amazon gave law enforcement the recordings of the Alexa from January 27th to January 29th, there would be audible evidence of the crime. However, Amazon's Privacy Policies are hindering the information because they can´t share it unless there´s a valid legal demand properly served to Amazon. And as Amazon responded in a previous case to this one, "Amazon does not seek to obstruct any lawful investigation, but rather seeks to protect the privacy rights of its customers when the government is seeking their data from Amazon, especially when the data may include expressive content protected by the First Amendment".
For the first time in history, an AI is not only the witness, but also the key for solving a homicide. Even thought it might be a great way to declare Verrill as guilty, there's nothing that can be done if Amazon decides to protect the information. We´ll know the final veredict until May 2019, the day of the trial.
So, will Privacy Policies be an important problem between law enforcement and tech companies? Should they really protect information from governments that much?
Sources
Flynn, Meagan. "Police think Alexa may have witnessed a New Hampshire double homicide. Now they want Amazon to turn her over" https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/14/police-think-alexa-may-have-witnessed-a-new-hampshire-homicide-slaying-now-they-want-amazon-to-turn-her-over/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d5edb424a093
Monge, Yolanda. "Alexa: ¿Quién mató a Christine y Jenna?" https://elpais.com/internacional/2018/11/14/mundo_global/1542234352_898061.html
By MM
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