‘Tis the season for unfettered government access to your data

Giving a voice-activated device to someone for Christmas? Think again

It's your holiday party. You're playing music throughout your house with your voice-activated speakers. The speakers, while playing the music, are listening to you and your guests, waiting for a "wake" word. A few days later, there is a knock on your door. It's the police. They have questions about a conversation you had with one of your guests, who has gone missing, and would like access to your speakers' data. Will you let them?

Most would answer "no", but the police do not have to stop there. Under the supreme court's third-party doctrine, police are not required to obtain a warrant before requesting access to your voice-activated speaker's data stored on company servers - that means even if you refuse the police's request, the company that made your voice-activated speakers may nonetheless turn over any of the recordings it has of your conversations - and it may not even tell you about it, raising serious privacy and constitutional concerns.