LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Starting Tuesday, Amazon will connect many Echo smart speakers and Ring security devices to Amazon Sidewalk.

What You Need To Know

  •  Amazon will connect many Echo smart speakers and Ring security devices to Amazon Sidewalk, starting Tuesday

  • Amazon Sidewalk builds a network with other devices in your neighbors’ homes, aiming to keep them connected if your internet goes out

  • Amazon said there are multiple steps to protect data

  • Echo or Ring users have to turn the function off if they don’t want to participate

The program builds a network with other devices in your neighbors’ homes, aiming to keep them connected if your internet goes out.

But is it safe?

“In the average case, it’s secure enough,” said Adrian Lauf, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Louisville. “It’s going to do what it’s supposed to do, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be comfortable with it and that doesn’t mean that nobody can possibly exploit it.”

Lauf said there are always risks involved with shared networks.

“You’re still going on somebody else’s network,” Lauf said. “You’re still relying on those security algorithms and methods to protect you from someone who may have a malicious intent.”

Amazon has several protocols in place to keep your neighbors from hacking your system.

“Regarding security, preserving customer privacy and security is foundational to how we’ve built Amazon Sidewalk,” an Amazon spokesman told Spectrum News. “Sidewalk is designed with multiple layers of privacy and security to protect the data traveling on the network and to keep customers safe and in control.”

There are multiple layers of encryption and limits on how much internet bandwidth can be pulled by or from your neighbors.

Echo or Ring users have to turn the function off if they don’t want to participate, though.

Lauf said it makes more sense to have as many people using it as possible.

“You need to have that critical mass, if you will. You need to have a minimum number of participants using Sidewalk for it to be viable,” he said. “If only two people in a whole city use it, it’s pointless.”

And with anything involving smart devices, Lauf said there’s a tradeoff if you’re interested in Amazon Sidewalk.

“You trade off some privacy for some convenience, and in some parts of the equation, that calculation is worth it, others, it’s not,” Lauf said. “For me personally, Sidewalk is not.”

Existing Echo or Ring users can opt out of the system by going through the Alexa app or the Ring control center. New Echo or Ring devices will ask if you want to opt-in to Amazon Sidewalk.

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