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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  1293 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Amazon’s Alexa for Landlords Is a Privacy Nightmare Waiting to Happen

If your landlord accesses a private conversation, they are guilty of violating federal (and likely state) wiretap law. It's that simple.

If your landlord accesses a private conversation with Amazon's assistance, willing or unwilling, Amazon has committed tort.

If Amazon's lawyers are any good at all, they have cautioned Amazon at great length as to the absolute cliff face of risks/rewards on this particular feature.

If Amazon's coders are any good at all, they have made it impossible for shitty landlords to attach Amazon to a class-action civil tort violation of wiretapping law.

Those first two "ifs" only come into play if lawyers can be motivated to get involved. Those second two "ifs" fall down if Amazon generally sucks at this.

I give it 50/50.





c_hawkthorne  ·  1293 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Being not well versed in tort and legal shit, what about one party consent states? Could it be considered if a landlord provides an alexa device and puts something in the contract that the tenenat might be fucked legally?

kleinbl00  ·  1293 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Audio surveillance is a different world than recording conversations. This whole "one party consent two party consent" thing is all about a conversation that you are in. Otherwise you're fucking with the wiretap act.

If the Trump era has taught us one thing, it's that it comes down to enforcement and who has the best lawyers. But fundamentally? If Amazon distributes a system to landlords that allows them to violate the law, knowingly or not, Amazon would likely get the opportunity to prove that they aren't liable for doing so. It would also be really, really shitty for their brand.

This is the fun of hidden camera shows, and why every security camera you've ever seen doesn't have a microphone on it. US law has a much dimmer view of audio surveillance than they do of video surveillance (not that video surveillance via an Alexa would be hunky dory, either - reasonable expectation of privacy is pretty easily established).

OftenBen  ·  1293 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Bet Bezos legal team comes to back up whoever gets dragged into court first.

johnnyFive  ·  1293 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wiretap law is debatable, tort doesn't seem likely (not sure what kleinbl00 is referring to with that one).

The thing is, for court to happen, the landlord has to get caught.

Also, this presupposes they don't require consent as part of the lease, which muddies the waters still further.

edited to add: this also assumes the tenant has the money to sue over it.

OftenBen  ·  1293 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Give this man a cigar.