Your internet may soon be available to anyone nearby. Should you be worried?

On June 8, American tech behemoth Amazon enabled Amazon Sidewalk on its Echo devices, resulting in headlines about sharing the internet with neighbors and strangers and how to turn it off.

Locally, some Kansans raised the alarm that local data, too, could be at risk.

Because just as your home can use the extended signal, so can your neighbors or any one else walking by. Likewise, you can use your neighbor’s signal, allowing your Sidewalk-connected devices to stay online even if your WiFi signal becomes unavailable.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. But Amazon says in recent reports that any information transferred over the network is encrypted and users will be unable to see specifically which Bridge device they are connected to.

Local privacy experts expressed concern about the program’s parameters.

“Amazon assures us that it protects the content of the [data]. But that might not be the most important thing,” Eugene Vasserman, an associate professor of computer science at Kansas State University, said. “For smart home devices, it’s not the most important thing. The metadata, the timing [of the signal], the size [of the data], all of this, is more information about the content and the more sensitive information.”

Now, users across the country are wondering if Sidewalk is secure enough to be enabled in some homes, and what Amazon might use Sidewalk for in the future, and why Amazon didn’t ask users to opt-in to the technology.

Should you be worried and should you opt out? We talked with local experts to find out.

What is Amazon Sidewalk?

Amazon Sidewalk is a shared network created by individual devices, which Amazon calls “Bridges,” to make its home devices Ring and Echo work more efficiently.

Right now, Amazon Echo is the most popular smart speaker in the United States, with over 40 million units installed, topping competitors like Google Home, which has faced its own criticisms around privacy. Over a third of U.S. adults use a smart speaker such as Amazon Echo

For the Sidewalk roll out, each Amazon device now extends a home’s WiFi signal, but does not replace it, allowing the signal to reach devices like smart TVs on the other side of the house or a security camera outside. Starting June 14, lost-item tracker Tile will join Amazon Sidewalk, lengthening the list of devices connected via the network.

Many Echo devices, Ring Floodlight, and Ring Spotlight Cams are able to become Sidewalk Bridges and hence, as of June 8, would have Sidewalk enabled unless the user has turned it off. Users can check whether it is enabled in their Alexa App under “Account Settings.”

Is my information safe?

Amazon assures users in a release that “information transferred over Sidewalk Bridges is encrypted and Bridge customers are not able to see that Sidewalk-enabled devices are connected to their Bridge”

But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

If the data were a message in an envelope, the metadata would be the address and the return address on the envelope, which can communicate information about the message without actually sharing the message.

Vasserman gave an example of a smart light that sends information through Amazon Sidewalk when it detects motion. Simply knowing information was sent would be enough to know that motion was detected, even without having access to the specific information sent.

“[Sidewalk] doesn’t do metadata protection per se. They don’t do as much of it as they could,” Vasserman said. “This is because they are low power devices, so the amount of protection they can apply to the data and metadata is limited.”

Unlike California, there is no general data privacy law in Kansas. Senator Jerry Moran (R) introduced a bill in Congress early this year that would establish a federal standard if approved.

Under current laws, if a data breach were to happen, Kansas law requires that affected residents be notified in a timely manner.

Amazon Sidewalk’s information page does not state how user information may be used or sold.

Should I disable Amazon Sidewalk?

The decision to disable Amazon Sidewalk really depends on your level of comfort with the possible risks.

“[Amazon Sidewalk] definitely takes away some privacy. Whether people think it is worth it or not is a decision people would need to make,” Vasserman said. “I’m not certain from reading [Amazon’s security white paper about Sidewalk] whether I would turn it on or not.”

Users wishing to opt out of Amazon Sidewalk can use the latest version of the Alexa app to do so. Open the “more” button and select “settings.” Select “Account Settings” and “Amazon Sidewalk.” Finally, select “Off” to turn the feature off.

“My advice is to decide how important it is to you before you take the risk, albeit apparently a very low one at this point, and if there are other alternatives you can explore,” Jabara wrote. “Either way, it is common sense to educate yourself through reputable online tech sources to keep up to date on the latest developments with Sidewalk, because I am sure they will be fast and furious.”

How much does Amazon Sidewalk cost?

Amazon is not charging its customers an additional fee to use Sidewalk. However, internet service providers fees still apply and data usage counts toward any data caps, potentially surprising users who were not aware that the feature was activated.

“Because this device relies on your Wi-Fi as a base for connectivity, you could possibly hit a cap on your bandwidth limitations, thus denigrating your WIFI connections” Joe Jabara, Director of the Hub for Cybersecurity Education and Awareness at Wichita State University wrote in an email.

On its product information page, Amazon says that data sharing is capped at 500 MB of data a month, equivalent to about 10 minutes of streaming a high definition video, while bandwidth is capped at 80 Kbps or 1/40 the speed needed to stream that high definition video.

Is Amazon Sidewalk safe?

Amazon Sidewalk creates its own network so neighbors and anyone walking by on the street won’t be using your home WiFi network. In addition, Amazon says that data sent over the network has three layers of encryption protecting your data.

That doesn’t mean it is perfect.

“Eventually there will be some sort of hole or gap in their system that will be discovered, hopefully by Amazon. It happens in the world of [Internet of Things] software.” Jabara wrote. “Within a year or so of becoming popular, both Ring and Zoom were sued for various problems in security. Both, because of those events, have become more secure as a result.”

This story was originally published June 14, 2021 at 2:51 PM.