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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

(IANAL but...) I’m pretty sure it’s legal to record anything within your own home if you’re the one that set it up. That’d cover placing devices that delegate that recording to Amazon.

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> California's wiretapping law is a "two-party consent" law. California makes it a crime to record or eavesdrop on any confidential communication, including a private conversation or telephone call, without the consent of all parties to the conversation. See Cal. Penal Code § 632. The statute applies to "confidential communications" -- i.e., conversations in which one of the parties has an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation.

Communication (say over the phone) is different than recording within the four walls of your home.

This is addressed in the comment to which you are replying by the prepositional phrase "including a private conversation".

That’s interesting. I’d have imagined it to be superseded by the castle doctrine.

I’d imagine more of an implied consent angle. In any event the truly paranoid can just put a small notice on the door.

It's sort of a chicken-and-egg scenario. Once someone tells you that there's an active recording device it's no longer a "confidential communication" because you no longer have an "objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation". You don't have to stop recording just because someone wants you to stop, you just can't do it without being upfront about it. Home assistant devices are common enough (ads in the superbowl!) that I imagine a judge would consider the physical presence of the device as being reasonable indication that there is no "objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation".

No, it's not. It depends on the laws where you are at, but most places usually have something saying if the guest has a reasonable expectation of privacy, then you are not allowed to record.

I don't think you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when someone is speaking into a recording device, after intentionally saying a word to start recording.

And when the Alexa gets confused and records anyway? Or the guest is, at least initially, unaware that an Alexa is present?

Amazon may have some legal responsibilities to avoid the first scenario, but certainly not the second. The legal onus falls upon the resident to inform their guests of any recording devices. Nowhere that I can think of is it illegal to run a recording device in your own residence, or even to do so against the wishes of guests. It is only illegal (in some places) if done secretly. Amazon is well within reason to operate on the assumption that their customers are using their product only in legal ways.

IANAL either, but I’v come to understand that covert recording conversations which you are not party of, is illegal, regardless of the location.

Generally true, but not what's happening. One of the parties in the conversation owns the Alexa device, and it is that party that is recording the conversation. Otherwise, selling recording equipment would be almost universally illegal! If the owner of the Alexa device does not want it to record a conversation it is within their power to turn off the device.

You need to be party of the conversation being recorded. Ownership is irrelevant.

It is impossible for a recording device to be party to a conversation because recording devices are not people. What is of significance is whether the recording device is operating at the direction of a party to the conversation.

Yes, I guess something got lost in translation there.

So, what's not allowed is to

1. Setup a covert recording device in your house.

2. Go to the store/work/gym/zoo.

3. Covertly record your spouses conversation with her secret lover.

4. Use that recording in court.

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