On June 8, Alexa users were enrolled in a shared wireless mesh service entitled “Amazon Sidewalk.”  Amazon describes Sidewalk as creating

[a] low-bandwidth network with the help of Sidewalk Bridge devices including select Echo and Ring devices. These Bridge devices share a small portion of your internet bandwidth which is pooled together to provide these services to you and your neighbors. And when more neighbors participate, the network becomes even stronger.

Amazon provides the answers to a number of frequently asked questions about Sidewalk, including how Sidewalk works, the benefits of using Sidewalk, customer privacy protections, Sidewalk’s effect on your internet bandwidth, and instructions on enabling or disabling the Sidewalk feature.  More information on Sidewalk can be found on Amazon’s website.

Check out our series, Privacy Perils, to learn what steps you can take to guard your personal and company data. For more information about this topic and other cyber security concerns, please contact a member of our Privacy & Data Security team.