{"id":1132,"date":"2021-10-25T16:48:22","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T20:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/aclr-online\/volume-54\/alexa-and-third-parties-reasonable-expectation-of-privacy\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:09:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:09:27","slug":"alexa-and-third-parties-reasonable-expectation-of-privacy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/aclr-online\/volume-54\/alexa-and-third-parties-reasonable-expectation-of-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexa and Third Parties\u2019 Reasonable Expectation of Privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u201cLast night, I was driving <i>a Lexus <\/i>and accidentally ran a red light before hitting a young man crossing the street.\u201d If someone says this in a friend\u2019s home, not knowing that Amazon\u2019s Alexa is recording, does this person have a reasonable expectation of privacy? Would law enforcement\u2019s attempts to obtain the statement constitute a search?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Recently, Amazon agreed to disclose recordings captured on an Amazon Echo device in the home of a murder suspect in Arkansas. Amazon initially refused to hand these recordings to the police, but later obtained permission from the Echo\u2019s owner. The Echo is a small \u201csmart\u201d speaker that responds to voice commands by way of its artificial intelligence assistant named \u201cAlexa.\u201d Users can use the device to run simple web searches, control digital thermostats, or play a variety of media. Voice interactions are recorded on Amazon\u2019s servers and users can view (and delete) the query, Alexa\u2019s response, and even a transcript of the whole exchange.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Under current Fourth Amendment doctrine, when someone takes a deliberate step to install a microphone in her home with knowledge that her interactive data will be transmitted to a third party, she has no reasonable expectation of privacy. But a more nuanced question arises when someone who is <i>not <\/i>the device owner is recorded without consent, and the recording is requested without a warrant. This piece will discuss Alexa\u2019s role in a recent murder trial and how the device could have potentially recorded and stored incriminating evidence. The discussion will follow with an inquiry into whether existing state consent laws can be reconciled with the existing third-party doctrine in order to match the privacy expectations of visitors to an Alexa-enhanced home.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/10\/54-0_Davidian_ALEXA_AND_THIRD_PARTIES_REASONABLE_EXPECTATION_OF_PRIVACY.pdf\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u201cLast night, I was driving a Lexus and accidentally ran a red light before hitting a young man crossing the street.\u201d If someone says this in a friend\u2019s home, not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4766,"featured_media":0,"parent":1023,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-1132","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4766"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1134,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1132\/revisions\/1134"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}