STOP YOUR TV SPYING ON YOU
When you watch your smart TV, you may not realise it’s also watching you. Robert Irvine reveals the hidden settings you must change to keep your viewing private
As we reported in Issue 727 (page 10), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing several smart-TV manufacturers for “secretly recording what consumers watch in their homes”. Although this isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s a pertinent reminder of the privacy threat posed by internet-connected TV sets, which has become gradually more intrusive over the past 10 years.
Here we explain how your telly is spying on you and the settings you must change to stop it collecting and sharing data about you.
How does your TV spy on you?
Many TV manufacturers use technology called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) to analyse your viewing habits. This privacy-invading software can capture shots of your TV screen every 500 milliseconds (twice a second), without your knowledge or consent.
ACR works by taking a tiny sample of the video and audio playing on your screen and converting it into a digital fingerprint. The fingerprint is then matched against a massive database to identify what you’re watching and when.
This includes TV shows, films and adverts on digital channels, streaming services and even DVDs and Blu-rays. The data is then shared with device manufacturers and sold to advertisers so they can show you ads based on your perceived interests and location.