The PET Paradox: How Amazon Instrumentalises PETs in Sidewalk to Entrench Its Infrastructural Power.

Contributor(s)

Thijmen van Gend, Seda Gürses, Donald Jay Bertulfo

Abstract

While Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) aim to alleviate power asymmetries, recent applications imply that PETs may entrench the infrastructural power of companies implementing them. We empirically study this contradiction in Amazon’s cloud connectivity service called Sidewalk. In 2021, Amazon remotely updated Echo and Ring devices to become Sidewalk “gateways”. Compatible Internet of Things (IoT) devices, called “endpoints”, can connect to their associated “Application Server” in Amazon Web Services (AWS) through other people’s gateways. We see a two-faceted PET paradox. First, suppressing some information flows allows Amazon to make narrow privacy guarantees to gateway owners; yet the connectivity enables novel concerning information flows. Second, Amazon imposes broad requirements on Sidewalk-adopting IoT manufacturers to implement the PETs. These turn manufacturers’ endpoints into accessories of Amazon’s computational infrastructure; entrenching its infrastructural power.