Wearable device that records your voice for legal defense
It is illegal, in most places, to record a conversation without the other person's consent, but via definition, that doesn't include a recording of only your own voice during said conversation. I suspect this is possible via similar tech to "invisible" hearing aids that go inside the ear canal, except that our concept right here would possibly use a contact microphone instead of a regular one. Next step on our legal defense enterprise is to store the recorded voice alongside time information in an archival and unalterable medium, such as a blockchain. Before someone asks, audio can be faked well enough to fool human ears, but it is pretty damn hard to tamper with or falsify well enough to fool sound analysis. To add an even better wealth of protective evidence, we could couple this device with biological and GPS data from stuff such as Fitbit or Oura rings, also streamed in real time to an unalterable medium. The date and hour of a recording could be falsified to point an earlier time via prerecording, but can never be falsified to a point after the storage medium registering.
I could go on in details, but this is the basic idea. Become immune to fraudulent accusations. Had the idea after a friend of my mother got thrown in jail for a bogus sexual harassment accusation, with no proofs. Life of an innocent man ruined. Hopefully, the judiciary works better in the US and Europe than here where I live.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadAlso, fixing the law takes years. Injecting your ear hole with a hearing device takes a few seconds.
It might be worked around, but so can almost anything.
Sleep data, etc would need to come from a certified device with possible calibration, just as people get out of traffic tickets by uncalibrated radar equipment by police. Also, just about all commercially available devices to track sleep aren't 100% accurate. GPS isn't 100% accurate and can be spoofed externally, etc.
You'd also have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the voice wasn't AI generated, that it's your voice and so on and so on.
If one has to be this paranoid, it's likely the amount of pinholes and effort you'd have to jump through for the data to be accepted in court at all is gonna be a real pain.
If you are a defendant in criminal court, you don't need to prove anything. Just to raise doubt and poke holes on any unjust accusation. Innocent until proven guilty implies the accusation are the ones that have to worry about being able to prove something beyond reasonable doubt, ideally.
And sadly, no. False child abuse allegations have a 50%+ incarceration rate and nearly the same suicide rate. If anything goes in front of a jury, depend on your life basically being over. Lookup how Google's CSAM detection ruined a family's life for a year due to sending photos to their tele doctor during the pandemic.
I been through a case of my own during a divorce.. luckily mine was so absurd it was immediately dismissed from court and other party was held in contempt..
I had my google maps tracks history printed out, photos, conversations, etc. I did this exact thing. Maybe it helped.. not sure. I often dreamed of using a camera that took a photo every second and uploaded it, every day, forever.
Trying to put cameras everywhere in the home would lead to very expensive data storage as it would need to be stored forever. You also may be questioned about putting a camera in a bedroom or other area and such accusation could occur in an area where you can't, and don't want a camera, such as a bathroom. Cameras would need to be hidden for this tactical advantage as you are relying on disproving a specific lie. Otherwise, one was groped for 0.5 seconds in a car, in public, etc.
The long term solution was to simply no longer be a parent. It's sad, but the liability is too great.
Defendant: here I said "Yes".
Plaintiff: that's when I asked "did you do the illegal thing?"
At least this idea can help normalize public opinion to: it would better for us, the public, if we could record our interactions. Big brother is already doing it LEGALLY for quality purposes.
I used to do this too, with automatic software on my Android phone. I stopped when I switched to iPhone because I couldn’t find anything to do it. Android has been hitting these API’s as well.
My iPhone doesn't allow anything. Because Apple.
There are tools out there to transcribe recorded audio, and while I can do that with Zoom meetings, I can't do that with Apple.
We really need to be able to set up other-than-default apps on iOS.
God help whoever is on trial if you're on the jury!
My idea was not from a legal aspect, but more from a memory aspect where you can easily recover things you have said, heard or seen from the past
So I often use a third-party voice recorder app to record real-life situations such as medical interactions. (Don't ever tell the provider you're making recordings because they hate that. An urgent care nurse told me it was a HIPAA violation. That is rich: how could I violate my own HIPAA privacy with a personal recording?)
But I can't ever record phone conversations, unless I use the analog hole. My voice-recording app only records silence when system audio is used. Is this because of the patchwork of legality? Are phone developers reluctant to enable a feature that may be illegal in some jurisdictions? What's the best way to manage this?
"Google has been slowly deprecating and removing APIs that enable call recording over several Android versions. The company does this in the name of privacy and security and also because call recording laws are so varied across different countries."
~https://www.androidauthority.com/google-killing-call-recordi...
And in the same encounter, the attending physician said I should try to measure my blood pressure 5 times per day. I was a little shocked at that, too, and when I told my PCP, he calmly informed me that that attending physician was also largely composed of bovine manure, and once a day is a perfectly good cadence for monitoring blood pressure.
Needless to say, I haven't returned to that urgent care facility.
Doctor looked at me with annoyance for taking notes
I haven't managed to get that in years, at least not for any kind of seasonal or common sickness afflicting either myself, my wife or our kids. A few times I tried to ask some leading questions, but no doctor ever bit on the bait. It's as if they're being trained to only give patients medical advice and prescribe medicine, and in no way disclose or even hint at possible diagnosis. Not even in the medical documentation, at least not in one I could access.
(Geographical context: that's all in Poland, EU, and I experienced the same phenomenon in both public and private healthcare.)
All modern phones have locked down access to call sound output to prevent stalking apps. Sometimes there is a workaround to record call output through the accessibility features, usually this comes with a big enough disclaimer that it can’t be used to stalk someone when used maliciously. The more reliable way to record a phone call including what the other person is saying is to put it on speakerphone.
That seems like a cop-out to me, and it actually seems to be a tacit admission that PHI isn't secure in the middle of a facility. If someone else's PHI hits my ears or eyes, it's already a HIPAA violation whether or not it's recorded. The desire of consumers to record interactions and keep providers honest does not/should not constitute a novel barrier to that provider's privacy compliance.
There’s a ton of risks for phone providers for malware, abusive apps, etc to make those APIs work everywhere.
If you’re someone at actual risk of litigation there’s a doubled edged sword. If you routinely record than don’t at a convenient time, that can cause trouble for you.
Especially so if the audio file contains only your voice so there’s not context.
[1]: https://youtu.be/e0elNU0iOMY
It’s not like just because it’s in a blockchain, its content is truthful. It just confirms it followed the rules of the blockchain.
Storage wise, I’d personally just go with a publicly stored (and archived) cryptographic hash of the recordings. Not really a need for zero trust if you can produce proof of authenticity.
I think most states, one-party consent is applicable... "In 12 states—California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington—all parties involved need to consent before one of them can record the conversation.".. but I believe this is only for audio recording... and video is fine.
I wonder if I can record someone from CA if I call them from GA without telling them?
Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, Inc., 137 P.3d 914 (Cal. 2006), the California Supreme Court applied California wiretap law to a company located in Georgia that routinely recorded business phone calls with its clients in California
Similar to how the NSA doesn’t “collect” in its dragnet because until they search and review it, it’s not collection
MR BIG PLAN: I'd like to introduce into evidence this recording of the conversation in question.
OPPOSING COUNSEL: Move to exclude, this is a two-party consent state.
MBP: Ah hah! But this device only captures my voice, so the other person wasn't recorded! And I have a block-
OP: Irrelevant, it is a recording of the conversation, which is the subject matter of the statute in question. The fact that it's incomplete and of poor fidelity is not relevant to its admissibility.
JUDGE: Agreed, motion to exclude granted.
MBP [sputtering]: But I have a block chain...
JUDGE: A what? Is that some sort of weapon? Bailiff, search the defendant immediately.