In a trial in Gainesville, Florida Tuesday, police said a defendant accused of killing his roommate turned to his iPhone’s virtual assistant and said, “I need to hide my roommate.” WTEV reports that among Siri’s answers were: “What kind of place are you looking for? Swamps. Reservoirs. Metal foundries. Dumps.”
The report also said that according to police, Pedro Bravo’s phone had other possibly incriminating evidence, including location information that contradicts where he said he was on a September night in 2012, and that his phone’s flashlight was used for more than 48 minutes that night. Bravo is accused of killing Christian Aguilar, a Florida University student.
Apple holds on to information about users’ interaction with Siri for two years, as our own Pat May wrote last year. Apple said at the time that it keeps the data because it helps the company “train” Siri to keep improving.
Wow! People never cease to amaze me.
ReplyDeleteApparently this is a complete exagerration of the truth. The accused and the victim were not even roommates. A news item published on the website for WUFT, a Gainesville, FL radio station tells the real story taken from court transcripts.
ReplyDeleteAn update to this report says most of this is not true:
ReplyDelete"Update: Gainesville police are saying the reports about Pedro Bravo asking Siri for help are not true: “Multiple reports of Bravo asking Siri to hide a roommate are incorrect… GPD Det. Goeckel certainly did not testify to that,” the police department said on its Twitter account. The police then linked to a story by WUFT, which it says clears a couple of key things up. In a nutshell: The Siri search was not done on the phone, but an image of such a search was viewed on Facebook on the phone. And the person Bravo is accused of killing was not his roommate."
Thanks, John, for the update..
ReplyDeleteBut I wonder how many mystery writers asked Siri? I would be tempted....
ReplyDelete