When manufacturers of smart health connected objects refuse to say whether they are disclosing data to law enforcement

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Locks, doorbells, televisions, thermostats, voice assistants… these smart health connected objects are installed in homes to make them more practical, but what do we really know about the data collected every second by these intelligent sensors? This is the question that arose Techcrunch for the second year in a row. More specifically, the American media asked each manufacturer if they had already transferred this data to government or law enforcement. The results were published in an article December 11, 2019.

The three major manufacturers of smart health connected devices for the health home – Amazon, Facebook and Google – publish annual reports in which they provide information on the amount of data transferred at the request of the government or the police. Apple said that it does not need to compile these requests because it anonymizes all the data collected by the smart health connected objects it makes. But the rest of the manufacturers do not communicate publicly on this subject, which has led Techcrunch to question each of them. The answers are, most of the time, very incomplete.

Ring in the heart of controversy

August, the maker of smart locks and doorbells, made the same comments as in 2018. "We never received a national security letter"replied a spokesperson. But press secretary Stephanie Ng refused to disclose the number of non-national requests that could come from a foreign state.

Vacuum cleaner manufacturer iRobot said it had received no requests and would publish a report if it ever did. Arlo, an American manufacturer of smart health connected cameras, refused to respond to requests from journalists.

Ring, Amazon's smart health connected doorbell, has said on several occasions that it will release a report but does not specify a specific date. This smart health connected videophone is the subject of many criticisms. In early September 2019, we learned that Ring was collaborating with no less than 400 police services spread across the United States. If the goal is to fight crime locally including parcel theft and burglary, some believe that this device trivializes mass surveillance of citizens.

Finally, Samsung and the American manufacturer of smart thermostats Honeywell did not respond to requests from journalists for the second consecutive year.

And in France ?

These results show a trend: if the large manufacturers of smart health connected objects publish annual reports, many other players in the sector are not burdened with these questions. This is somewhat worrying when you know that the data collected constitutes the new digital evidence. They can be very valuable in solving a case. It is for this reason that a government, police force or intelligence may require manufacturers to transfer this information to them. To give just one example, in November 2019, an Amazon Echo speaker would have served as a witness in a femicide case. The object had recorded the dispute and the Florida police were able to use it to gather clues. But if the aim pursued is legitimate, that is to say the resolution of a crime, is legitimate, the lack of information raises questions.

The majority of media coverage of smart health connected objects concerns United States. In France, the laws do not specifically provide for this case. But the data recorded, contained or transmitted by a smart health smart health connected object, can in the absence of indications contrary to the jurisprudence be assimilated to "computer data"defined by the code of criminal procedure. Criminal investigation officers are authorized to have access to it during a search, including by accessing, from the place of search or from their service, a cloud or remote applications used from computer systems seized during the search.

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