While not necessarily impartial, your smartphone is a hell of an observer.
A Alabama man found out the hard way when he was sentenced Monday to 16 years in prison for the murder of his wife. Although there were numerous factors that led to Jeff West’s conviction in November on charges of reckless manslaughter, AL.com, a news site in Alabama, reports that data from his smartphone’s health app played a role.
West reportedly told law enforcement that he went to bed at about 10:30 p.m. the night of his wife’s death in 2018. According to data from his phone’s health app, he took 18 steps between 23:03 and 23:10.
His late wife, Kat West, was 42 years old.
This is not the first time that data from a health locator has been cited in a murder case. In the case of a death in 2016, police relied on the victim’s Apple Watch data to refute the claims of her accused killer. In 2017, Fitbit data contradicted a man’s story about the death of his wife. Apple heath app data was also used as evidence after a 2016 murder in Germany.
In particular, it’s not just Jeff West’s phone data that contradicts his allegations. AL.com reports that dr. Stephen Boudreau, a pathologist from the Department of Forensic Sciences in Alabama who testified during the trial, found that the blow to Kat West was probably not caused by a fall. Instead, he noted that everything that delivered the blow had an advantage, but it was not sharp.
An absinthe bottle was found near Kat West’s body.
The tragic murder of Kat West, and the subsequent conviction of Jeff West, serve as a reminder that our technology is constantly running in the background – a fact that the police will not soon forget.
While this may have been done right in the case of Kat West, it is easy to foresee that similar data will be used in a very different way. A Gainesville, Florida man, Zachary McCoy, was investigated for burglary simply because his telephone directory placed him near the scene of a crime. (He was on an innocent bike ride.)
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“I did not realize that Google also kept a log of where I was going,” McCoy told NBC News. ‘I’m sure it’s according to their terms of service, but I never got through the walls of text, nor do I think most people do. ‘
However, law enforcement is undoubtedly familiar with these conditions of service – something to remember the next time you go to a peaceful protest.