Does Amazon's Alexa Have Free Speech Rights?

Does Amazon's Alexa Have Free Speech Rights?
AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

In November 2015, Victor Collins was found dead in a hot tub in James Bates' home in Bentonville, Arkansas. Bates was charged with murder. During their investigation, police discovered that he owned an Amazon Echo—a device that, upon voice activation through the “wake” word “Alexa,” answers questions, provides sports scores, and “[h]ears you from across the room with far-field voice recognition, even while music is playing.” Alexa, in other words, both speaks to users and listens to and records them. The police sought and received a warrant to obtain audio recordings made by the Echo. Concerned that “rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers,” Amazon filed a motion to quash the warrant on Feb. 17, 2017. Buried in that motion was a striking claim: that Alexa's responses to user queries are protected by the First Amendment.

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