Wearable device that records your voice for legal defense

I have noticed that my Android phone app, Google Voice, and other communications apps that I use make it difficult or impossible to record a conversation in progress. Now in my jurisdiction, it is legal for me to record any conversation with one-party consent, and that party is me.

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?

I don't know why but its blocked at android level (I have no idea of IOS situation).

"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...

That sucks. Where I live it's not illegal to record. Once I won a small claims court case against my Telco provider, where they signed me up without notice and charged me for services I didn't request. As proof I presented recordings of their awful customer service wrongly telling me repeatedly they had already fixed it, and then the following bills showing otherwise.

Can't have peasants holding the masters accountable. That just won't do.

I love corporations overzealously enforcing laws on people through those people's private devices.

I’ve done HIPAA assessments. That nurse should stick to her day job.

Thank you. I immediately knew she was bluffing, but since I had politely asked permission, I also had to politely obey their bullshit policy.

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.

doctors/nurses looking out for each other to avoid medical malpractice is just as entrenched as backing the blue. getting another doctor/nurse to testify against another is nearly impossible. sounds to me like this nurse was just trying to prevent someone from getting a leg up on a case that would make all of their malpractice insurance premiums go up

As a patient I am so offended by the idea that getting a complete and accurate record of one's own medical history and communications might actually just be a big hinderance that really is only gonna make someone's insurance premiums go up.

Life hack: If you are ever getting brusque / rushed / insincere medical care, make sure you have a small notepad and pen on you. Just take notes after you get possibly wrongly informed in front of the care provider... you would be surprised how much their posture changes from a place of hostility to one of actual service if they see that you are someone who actually keeps receipts of what they shared with you.

This may be true in general, but it brings to mind this one experience where I had the gall to stop my doctor for a moment so that I could write down the name of a diagnosis. Looked at me with annoyance, like no one ever did that before.

Next note:

Doctor looked at me with annoyance for taking notes

TODO: Find new doctor.

You got a diagnosis out of a doctor?

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.)

Allowing patients to record audio and video greatly increases the impact of incidental disclosure, of other patients PHI being exposed by your recording or another patient recording your PHI, and that can be a HIPAA violation depending on the context.

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.

> Allowing patients to record audio and video greatly increases the impact of incidental disclosure, of other patients PHI being exposed by your recording or another patient recording your PHI, and that can be a HIPAA violation depending on the context.

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.

Apple Watches work well for this.

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.

Sounds like working on fixing the law would be more productive to solve this problem. Your idea can be worked around and, in some cases, turned against you. Not to mention that if you have to go this far to prevent from being framed, you're probably on your toes most of the time during conversations, like playing chess, constantly aware not to say anything that could be taken out of context, etc.

Hard to be taken out of context if the audio is cross-referenced with upload date and time, GPS position, your heart rate, oxygen level, sleep patterns, step count, etc...

Also, 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.

All of your carefully curated and collected data could also be thrown out easily without a clear chain of custody, such as immediate upload in such a way that the data could not be modified and accurately timestamped. Such datastore would need to never have a data. breach or later platform flaw that would break the chain of custody.

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.

> 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 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.

That's a nice catch phrase. You're presumed innocent until accused. Then you're jailed until proven innocent. The burden of proof is dependent on how often your attorney plays golf with the judge.

"Hopefully, the judiciary works better in the US"

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.

> Hard to be taken out of context if the audio is cross-referenced with upload date and time, GPS position, your heart rate, oxygen level, sleep patterns, step count, etc...

Defendant: here I said "Yes".

Plaintiff: that's when I asked "did you do the illegal thing?"

The other danger is that it's simply used as evidence against you. I'd surprised if there's any jurisdiction in the world where you can live a normal life without breaking any laws.

You can't fix the law.

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.

[ Law & Order DUN DUN noise ]

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.

Input wise, a throat mic would work. They can rest on the side of your neck and generally only hear you. There’s probably even Bluetooth ones available out there.

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.

An audio file being checked into a block in a blockchain doesn’t prove an interaction happened at that time, it only proves an audio file was checked into a block at that time.

Especially so if the audio file contains only your voice so there’s not context.

What it DOES do is confirm that this audio recording DID EXIST at that time entered into the timestamped blockchain — or even a hash of the audio file (for less bits/txn fee).

According to a Tom Scott's video[1], you can use background noise emitted by electricity to prove that a recording has been taken at a certain time and place.

[1]: https://youtu.be/e0elNU0iOMY

You check the hash of the audio into the chain.

Same problem. Doesn't prove that it was created at that point, only that it existed at that point.

Yep. As I stated, you can falsify an event happening later than it really did by prerecording and only uploading later, but you can't fake that it happened after uploading. With clever cross-referencing, it might even be possible to prove decisively when the file was created.

Post the hash online?

Because the audio is only your half of the conversation, you could just record what would be convenient to have said before the conversation, then say something different, and just upload your prepared file.

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.

Undeleteable, publicly-stored surveillance tech seems problematic. Why bother with blockchain when you could e.g. stream (hopefully encrypted) data to a home server controlled by you? Then you can keep it for your own records and call upon it when needed. You could also add a feature to the product that gives trusted friends access to the files in case you are unable to for whatever reason.

You wouldn't lose privacy by using a blockchain if the file is encrypted. It is protective, because the time of upload can't be faked with a blockchain. As I stated, one could prerecord and upload at a later time, thus faking the register to make an event appear more recent than it really is, but once uploaded, there is no way to falsify the recording as having happened at a later point in time than the upload. If these recordings are being streamed in real time non-stop, the recordings can be assumed to always reflect reality, thus providing strong evidence in court.

> It is illegal, in most places, to record a conversation without the other person's consent

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?

There was a recentish case on that subject

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

Woah thanks, looks like it was dismissed and that recording is allowed.

It was not dismissed. The case was appealed to the CA supreme court and injunctive relief was granted, recording CA clients from GA is not allowed without disclosure at the start of the call.

I record every single work call I have. Fifteen years and counting. In my state, it is legal to record someone so long as you are part of the recording. So I record everything. It comes in handy.

How do you do it?

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.

I am looking into this.

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.

I've been thinking about this idea for years, both audio and/or video. But no company seems to be interested on this. All small recorders I can find have short duration batteries and store the contents on the device so you have to keep manually offloading the files every X hours.

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

Why go through the rigamaroll of a contact mic? Just use a mic that listens to the entire conversation, then an AI layer to remove every voice except yours, before you can access the recording

Similar to how the NSA doesn’t “collect” in its dragnet because until they search and review it, it’s not collection

First thought, it may be against the law to record someone without their consent, even if you scrub it later.

That was my rationale.

I’d love to hear more about this and contribute if I can. I’m a web developer but maybe I have some skills that would be useful. I’m surprised this hasn’t blown up.

lol

thats what he told you...doesnt mean hes innocent...youll find out the less an arse*ole you are the less people are against you

Whether or not he is really innocent isn't the point. The issue is being jailed without evidence. Guilty before proven innocent happens all over the world, and is happening more often now due to political polarization causing fraudulent accusations to be par of the course for prominent individuals - it is becoming an occupational hazard as we delve into idiocracy.

No smoke without fire eh?

God help whoever is on trial if you're on the jury!