Popular smart TV models can take multiple snapshots of what you are watching every second or upload audio snippets of viewed content 鈥� possibly even when they are being used as external displays for your laptop or video game console.
Smart TV manufacturers use these frequent screenshots or audio clips in their automatic content recognition systems, which track viewing habits in order to target people with specific advertising. But researchers showed this tracking by some of the world鈥檚 most popular smart TV brands 鈥� Samsung TVs can take screenshots every 500 milliseconds and LG TVs upload 10-millisecond audio samples of viewed content 鈥� can occur when people least expect it.
鈥淲hen a user connects their laptop via HDMI just to browse stuff on their laptop on a bigger screen by using the TV as a 鈥榙umb鈥� display, they are unsuspecting of their activity being screenshotted,鈥� says at the University of California, Davis. An LG spokesperson disputed this scenario, and Samsung did not respond to a request for comment.
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Vekaria and his colleagues connected smart TVs from Samsung and LG to their own computer server. Their server acted as a middleman to track network activity that could indicate what visual snapshots or audio data the TVs were uploading.
They found the smart TVs did not appear to upload any screenshots or audio data when streaming from Netflix or other third-party apps, mirroring YouTube content streamed on a separate phone or laptop or when sitting idle. But the smart TVs did upload data when showing broadcasts from the TV antenna or content from an HDMI-connected device.
The researchers also discovered country-specific differences when users streamed the free ad-supported TV channel provided by Samsung or LG platforms. Data was uploaded when the TV was operating in the US but not in the UK.
By recording user activity even when it鈥檚 coming from connected laptops, smart TVs might capture sensitive data, says Vekaria. For example, it might record if people are browsing for baby products or other personal items.
LG and Samsung documentation describe such content tracking as an opt-in choice during the TV setup process.聽And聽customers can opt out 鈥� but the process requires them to change multiple options in the TV鈥檚 settings.
鈥淭his is the sort of privacy-intrusive technology that should require people to opt into sharing their data with clear language explaining exactly what they鈥檙e agreeing to, not baked into initial setup agreements that people tend to speed through,鈥� says at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy non-profit based in California.
arXiv
Article amended on 30 September 2024
We updated the story with comment from an LG representative
