As smart speakers for the home continue to grow in popularity, police departments have started to take notice. Now, whenever attorneys and law enforcement officials are investigating a crime, they can put your virtual assistant in the hot seat. They can cross-reference a variety of information from smart devices, including location data, audio recordings, and biometric data. Together, it can paint a picture of where a suspect was and when, often far more reliably than any human witness.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Sidney Fussell joins us to talk about the strange murder case where a smart speaker became the star witness. We also share tips about how to manage the privacy settings in your own smart tech.

Warning: This episode features a brief conversation about domestic violence and assault.

Show Notes

Read Sidney’s story about law enforcement collecting information from smart speakers here. Find more episodes of the Get WIRED podcast here.

Recommendations

Sidney recommends the show I May Destroy You on HBO. Lauren recommends Vanity Fair’s September issue, with a cover story about Breonna Taylor. Mike recommends the episode of the podcast Questlove Supreme with Bootsy Collins.

Sidney Fussell can be found on Twitter @SidneyFussell. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our executive producer is Alex Kapelman (@alexkapelman). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here.

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed.


More Great WIRED Stories

You May Also Like

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay pays $787,000 at auction for Apple II manual signed by Steve Jobs

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay had the winning bid for a vintage Apple…

TSMC Seeks Up to $15 Billion From U.S. for Chip Plants but Objects to Conditions

Share Listen (2 min) This post first appeared on wsj.com

Teens Hacked Boston Subway’s CharlieCard to Get Infinite Free Rides—and This Time Nobody Got Sued

In early August of 2008, almost exactly 15 years ago, the Defcon…

Musk Meets With White House Officials, Congressional Republicans

Politics CEO of Twitter, Tesla visited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy a day…