NBTV: Your Money, Your Data, Your Life Amazon sidewalk... a surveillance network?
Amazon Sidewalk has launched! But how secure is it?
As of today, owners of Ring security cameras and Alexa devices are contributing a small portion of their internet bandwidth to create a network that makes it so devices stay connected further away from a home router and remain online when local Wi-Fi goes down.
Sounds great for home security, but what about privacy? It means Amazon can stay connected to you AT ALL TIMES. And everyone with an Amazon device is automatically opted-IN by default. Millions of people will now be co-opted into the program whether they know anything about it or not. It's also worth noting that fmr NSA director Keith Alexander now works on the board of Amazon.
As always, your privacy choices are your own preference, but you should ALWAYS be aware when people are collecting your data so that you can make informed decisions. But if you are privacy conscious, you might want to Opt out of Sidewalk!