Emily Turnage
Gamification of Social Media
In the past few blog posts, I’ve gone over privacy, and how the government decides what companies are allowed to store about us - and the personal implications those decision can have on users. This week’s blog post is in the same vein, as I’m going to discuss information storage and a privacy issue, but in a completely different light - outlined by this article on CNN that details how a court is trying to get Amazon to give them the records from a defendant’s Echo device, which works by constantly listening in for the right words to wake it - in the Echo’s case, the name “Alexa”.
In the article, they talk about the sound in the room actually being recorded, stored and processed, to be deleted at “a later date”. This is frightening, considering the sort of personal, private conversations that can happen in a home that may not be happening with as much frequency as online, but perhaps the people purchasing a voice-activated in home device would be aware of this most salient point before buying such a device. It’s what is required for the device to run, but should that information be distributed - at least to courts, when formally requested - by Amazon? It’s hard to defend any other viewpoint than ‘yes’. Though it could be thought of as an invasion of privacy, other things similar - cell phones, computers, et cetera - are seized by courts fairly often as part of cases; it makes sense that devices like Google Home or the Amazon Echo would follow in those footsteps. Amazon, however, is pushing back, saying they will not release the information and that “devices like the Echo… shouldn’t be used against you”. When accused of a crime, I am of the opinion that anything and everything that could be used for or against you can, and should, be utilized in order to paint out the entire picture for the jurors. That Amazon is concerned over whether their product is used against its users comes down to poor publicity - people hearing about the Echo being used in court cases won’t lend itself well to already-there concerns over privacy while using the device.
1 Comment
Ana Perez
5/8/2017 07:40:36 pm
Hello Emily,
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AuthorI am a senior studying Communication Design, with an emphasis in Game Design. I like playing video games, writing, and yelling too loudly about things I care about. Archives
May 2017
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