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Police Use Fitbit Data To Charge 90-Year-Old Man In Stepdaughter's Killing (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The last time Anthony Aiello spoke to his stepdaughter, he took homemade pizza and biscotti to her house in San Jose, Calif., for a brief visit. Mr. Aiello, 90, told investigators that she then walked him to the door and handed him two roses in gratitude. But an unnoticed observer in the house later revealed that their encounter ended in murder, a police report said. Five days afterward, Mr. Aiello's stepdaughter, Karen Navarra, 67, was discovered by a co-worker in her house with fatal lacerations on her head and neck. She had been wearing a Fitbit fitness tracker, which investigators said showed that her heart rate had spiked significantly around 3:20 p.m. on Sept. 8 (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), when Mr. Aiello was there. Then it recorded her heart rate slowing rapidly, and stopping at 3:28 p.m., about five minutes before Mr. Aiello left the house, the report said. Mr. Aiello was arrested last week on murder charges and booked into the Santa Clara County Jail, the San Jose Police Department said. On Thursday, he will appear in court in the Hall of Justice in San Jose, according to the Santa Clara County district attorney's office. "[T]he police said their investigation used a combination of video surveillance and data from Ms. Navarra's Fitbit, an Alta HR device, which she wore on her left wrist and synchronized with a computer in her home, where she lived alone," reports NYT. When asked for comment, Fitbit shared a copy of its privacy policy, stating in part that they comply with legal processes, including search warrants and court orders, when it shares data.
Tech companies are not, will not, and cannot be your friends.
In this case it's cool if they legit caught a murderer with it because at least it actually caught someone who did something terrible instead of the feds spending hundreds of manhours to bust your local weed dealer and shoot his dog or whatever, but don't think for a minute anything you have that collects data on you can be trusted.
A cell phone is a tracking devices that happens to be able to make phone calls. Seems like fitness trackers are just that.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Tech companies are not, will not, and cannot be your friends.
A certain amount of paranoia is certainly warranted in technology any time it harvests your information, for sure.
However in this case a device that the victim owned and activated was used to obtain information on her last moments alive. The NYT article shows that the police obtained a warrant to get the data, as they should. The data then was used to construct a timeline to determine what happened, when.
While the fitbit is not marketed as a crime-fighting device, it was a useful tool in this investigation. I don't really see what the problem here is. There is no indication that the victim was wearing the fitbit against her own will.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If I ever get to be 90 I wish I could be anywhere near fit enough to kill someone. Not that I would want to but do that but if you can actually kill someone violently it means you can move properly, which a lot of 90 year olds can't.
This needs an achievement.
Charge. Look it up. No need to be certain at this point, there will ultimately be a jury of his peers to decide if the data is certain or not.
Well FitBit doesn't monitor hits to the head. Also in a lot of cases. I put on my health tracker, I go for cardio run. My Heart Beats exceeding 170bpm then I stop, Cooling down, I take off the fitbit, just because I do not want it on me.
Did I just take off the device or did I just die?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Are they absolutely certain about the time sync between the cameras and the fitbit? Are they certain that the fitbit data corresponds with death?
If they have video footage of he opening the door, taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, whatever, they take take that timestamp and match it up to the corresponding activity rate on the fitbit. About all the defense would be able to do is argue that the fitbit somehow lost/gained time and the killing happened after he left. There should be enough data to demonstrate how well the fitbit keeps time to counter that argument though (assuming the fitbit does in fact keep consistent time).
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Well, from TFA, it looks like your question is irrelevant. They found a dead person. They got a warrant to look at the Fitbit data, which suggested strongly that whatsername died while whatsisname was physically present. They arrested whatsisname on suspicion of murder. And now twelve "good men and true" (okay, a mix of men and women, but the phrase is from way back before they let women sit on juries) will decide whether there's enough evidence to send a 90-year-old to prison for life (assuming he doesn't die of old age before the trial)....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
If any of my friends are reading this, if you're a murderer I'm not your friend either.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
She had a surveillance camera as well, presumably watching her door, that the could correlate with the fitbit timeline
She had been wearing a Fitbit fitness tracker, which investigators said showed that her heart rate had spiked significantly around 3:20 p.m. on Sept. 8 (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), when Mr. Aiello was there. Then it recorded her heart rate slowing rapidly, and stopping at 3:28 p.m., about five minutes before Mr. Aiello left the house, the report said.
Yeesh. I'd imagine anyone looking at that data, knowing that a murder had been committed, would get a cold shiver down their spine, watching the heartrate data do that.
That being said.. while in this case a tracking device (which is what Fitbit is, after all) has provided the time-of-death evidence necessary to catch a killer, it's still completely fucked up that people are voluntarily wearing a tracking device like Fitbit that gives away such valuable personal data to any corporation for any reason -- that apparently the police and other government agencies can then have access to. Don't do it, folks.
No I don't
His point is whether the FitBit can differientiate someone taking their FitBit off vs "death".
The answer is probably "no", but in this case it would be easy to tell since the police would know if the FitBit was found on the body.
Take any digital watches and cell phones present next time I kill someone...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
How much do you cool down? 30 bpm? 20 bpm? 10 bpm? It's not like her heartbeat went from steady healthy 60bpm to 0 when she dropped dead
Seems like a heartbeat of ZERO beats per minute isn't a "guess"...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Anchovies on pizza?!? I've killed people for less...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
*thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump*
Gallows humor is always funny.
She had a surveillance camera which recorded him leaving...with a timestamp on what time that was. Both the camera and the fitbit used NTP to determine what time it was.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Pattern 1 : no heartbeat, instant jump to moderate heartbeat, gradual boost to high heartbeat, slow decline in heartbeat back to moderate levels, instant cessation of heartbeat.
Pattern 2 : moderate heartbeat since daybreak, instant jump to high heartbeat, rapid decline in heartbeat that continues down to no heartbeat.
One of these matches someone wearing a fitbit just for exercise.
I would assume any reasonable coroner already thought of that.
Any are there so many anonymous cowards today trying to prove this guy was innocent? Are you indeed Mr Aiello using the internet from your jail cell?
The jury of your peers will decide this, not Slashdot. And there is much more evidence than the fitbit. Perhaps you should not have falsely claimed that you saw the deceased driving in her car with a friend past your window?
The fitbit and video evidence shows that the suspect lied about his activities. This points the finger of suspicion back at him, the police investigate and get more evicence. So far we only have a small fraction of the evidence, as police are not usually so likely to give out the entirety of the case to the local newspaper.
Wasn't there a bunch of news recently about the new Apple Watch calling 911 for some abnormal heartbeats?
In any case, these devices are generally going to be able to identify whether they're on a wrist or not, particularly with newer ones that also include pulse oximeters. I could easily see both fitness trackers and smartwatches being able to detect patterns that look like severe health issues and/or death and the ability to contact emergency services.
The biggest roadblocks are going to be regulatory and legal rather than technical - are your devices authorized to track this, respond to this, respond by calling 911, etc. *and* just as important to a manufacturer if a capable device *does not* detect, recognize or respond to a health emergency does the manufacturer get sued?
fencepost
just a little off
Your fitbit motion sensor showed you were jerking off last night at home instead, and your DVR shows you were watching Dancing With The Stars.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I have a fitbit charge 2 which counts steps and sleep habits, both of which are very useful to counter my diabetes. (why can't they track glucose too?) In this case it also tracked her heart rate going to zero and the time that happened. Also very useful to add forensic evidence for her murder. You could argue that's an invasion of privacy but I think the fact a murderer was caught outweighs that invasion, which she probably agreed to in any case. I'll gladly continue to wear my fitbit and I'm a security professional who cases about privacy. The benefits far outweigh the consequences.
nothing to see here - move along
They know when she died with a great degree of accuracy. they are also aware of lacerations on her neck, which aren't consistent with a heart attack. They have video footage showing the suspects car there at the same time.
Evidence does not exist in a vacuum.
Are they absolutely certain about the time sync between the cameras and the fitbit? Are they certain that the fitbit data corresponds with death?
It's pretty shocking how few people in Law Enforcement check on slashdot before jumping to conclusions isn't it?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it