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Comment by rcyeh | Hacker News Reader

Would you say more? Which part is the violation - the recording, transcription, storage, scanning of other data, interpretation, or something else? Does it matter if you are in a one-party or two-party (for consent to recording) state?

If a police officer is using a body camera and you happen to be speaking nearby, is that a violation of your privacy? What about the same situation, but the body camera user is not a police officer?

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It is illegal to record a private conversation without consent of the other party in these states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington.

Connecticut isn't actually a two party state for the purposes of this device. If you're recording in-person it becomes one-party. In Massachusetts this also wouldn't run afoul of the law because it isn't a secret recording. Michigan is also a one-party for participants which in-person you are. And Nevada is also one party for oral communication.

So you're left with 40/50 states where this device can be freely used and 10/50 states where this device can be freely used because it's a personal device and two-party consent is enforced less than jaywalking for regular people.

The "Intelligent Machines" podcast from twit.tv interviewed them and they get away with this because they are not recording the audio. It is never recorded or kept, it is transcribed in real-time and then sent to the AI and tokenized. Cheating maybe, but it's how they're trying to get away with it.

They absolutely are recording audio. It has a microphone. It records voices without consent. They may not retain the recordings for longer than necessary to transcribe the audio, but these devices sure as heck are making those recordings.

They are clearly attempting to circumvent the laws that prohibit this kind of activity, and their strategy likely involves fighting it in court long enough to pay off the investors or ultimately change case law. Sound familiar? It’s a common SV strategy that I personally think is grossly unethical.

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