W&L Law’s Fairfield Quoted in Los Angeles Times Professor Joshua Fairfield was quoted in a column titled "Amazon wants to use radar so Alexa can watch as you sleep."

By Peter Jetton
July 16, 2021

As reported in the Los Angles Times, Amazon recently received federal approval to develop an in-home device that will use radar to track sleep patterns. And while experts say there is no health risk from exposure to low-level electromagnetic radiation, legal scholars who study data privacy, including Washington and Lee law professor Joshua Fairfield, view Amazon’s new venture as a troubling expansion of Big Tech’s reach into our lives.

“Beyond the absolute certainty that this technology will be used to observe people who do not know or consent to being observed,” Fairfield said. “It erodes our sense of not being watched. Already our houses are the least private place we live our lives. This kind of innovation is the worst of the internet of things — unnecessary except for advertisers and data capitalists, and with the extra effect of moving surveillance into the center of the most vulnerable spaces and times.”

Read the full column here.

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