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Writer's pictureKelsey Barnes

Lifewire. Giving Amazon your sleep data is a security risk, says Private AI



After joining the streaming world, there isn’t much Amazon doesn’t have its hands on. Now, the marketplace giant wants to help you sleep better with their new Halo Rise alarm clock that tracks sleep patterns as a means to improve your sleep quality.


By tracking your sleep using a contactless, low-energy sensor and machine learning that charts one’s monitor respiration and movement patterns, the Halo Rise clock gives the sleeper a rundown of their sleep: an infographic that shows the time spent during each sleep phase and how your sleep environment impacted it.


But at what cost to your privacy? Private AI, a company that detects and redacts personally identifiable information, suggests erring on the side of caution.


In a recent feature for Lifewire, Private AI spoke about the security implications of giving your private information to a company like Amazon.


"Sleep tracking devices are no different than other wearables like fitness trackers. They track personal details such as REM sleep, oxygen levels, heart rate, and breathing patterns," explains Patricia Thaine, CEO of Private AI.


Having any sort of device using the Internet to compile and store your data leaves you open to attack.


"Because they are connected to the internet, malicious actors who hack into the tracker will have access to this information,” states Thaine. “Worse yet, they may be able to use the tracker to record what people are saying or doing in their bedrooms through the app."


The biggest issue Patricia Thaine of Private AI has with Amazon’s new sleep buddy is their lack of clarity around how they store your sleep data — and how they keep it safe.


Although their data won’t be sold to other third parties, Amazon can still use the information from the alarm clock to provide targeted marketing for their products and to further train their own AI models.

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