Audio Video News

Smart TVs: Who’s Watching Who?

Mark Fleischmann  |  Mar 10, 2015

“I’m terrified of my new TV,” said legal eagle Michael Price in his blog for the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. His Samsung Smart TV came with a camera and microphone for gesture and voice control—and a 46-page privacy policy.

Price worried that the TV is logging “where, when, how, and for how long you use the TV,” using cookies to detect viewing and interaction with content, apps, and e-mails, while routinely ignoring do-not-track requests. Price quoted the privacy policy: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.” The camera and mic may be on even when the TV is supposed to be off.

“I do not doubt that this data is important to providing customized content and convenience,” wrote Price, “but it is also incredibly personal, constitutionally protected information that should not be for sale to advertisers and should require a warrant for law enforcement to access.”

Media analyst Gary Arlen commented in Multichannel News: “These are valuable research features that give TV makers information they have never known about their customers. They also provide more intimate research capabilities than Nielsen. Hence they offer enormous value to program creators and distributors.” But, Arlen added, Samsung’s privacy disclosure “does little to inform viewers how or what personal data would be swept into the cloud for infinite future analyses.”

Samsung replied to Arlen: “We work to ensure that the personal data of our consumers remains secure and our products are not privy to hacker vulnerabilities. We monitor security risks in our Smart TV platform to make sure our existing products meet the latest security standards and new products are inoculated against malware and other risks.”

COMMENTS
jnemesh's picture
Submitted by jnemesh on March 11, 2015 - 9:57am

This issue has gotten WAY more press than it deserves. You can EASILY disable the voice features in the user menus of the TV set. And the camera can be clicked back into place so even if the camera WERE engaged, it would get a nice shot of the ceiling, nothing else. If you are REALLY paranoid about the microphone recording, even when you disable it in the menu, then I suggest you throw away your TV set, cut off your internet service, throw away your laptops and cell phones, and go live in the jungle in South America! EVERYTHING we use these days has the POTENTIAL to be used to spy on us. Get over it or get rid of your tech.

mikem's picture
Submitted by mikem on March 11, 2015 - 7:20pm

So jnemesh's answer to invasion of privacy is to "..get over it.." How naive and sophomoric. Wait until it happens to you then and your whole life is turned upside down. Then it won't seem so funny.

mwelters's picture
Submitted by mwelters on March 12, 2015 - 10:37am

"Who's watching whom"

RedCoat23's picture
Submitted by RedCoat23 on March 13, 2015 - 3:12pm

We have so many devices that have internet capability that I don't even bother connecting my TV to my local network. My Roku, my Bluray machine, my various games consoles all have internet connections and all run the various app's that the TV duplicates.

Unfortunately it's hard to get the better mechanical features on a TV without paying for the including network capabilities. In my case I don't need them and don't use them.

The camera on my Xbox One is unplugged until I need to use it. It takes seconds of my time to transition from one state to another and this way I remain in control.

X