When did Smart TVs become Smart Arse TVs?
Is your TV listening to you? Technology in danger of taking Big Brother to another step.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Shh. Your TV is no longer a passive screen in the corner of your living room.
Apparently it is also capable of “eavesdropping” on you, thanks to Voice Recognition technology.
A number of articles have emerged today over a Samsung Smart TV microphone, used for voice activated directions, hearing your private conversations and forwarding them to third parties.
The company’s privacy policy states: “Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with voice recognition features and evaluate and improve the features”.
It advises “if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party”.
If you disable voice recognition through the settings it will still listen out for key command phrases, and “Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it”.
It all sounds very Big Brother -Orwellian, not the Dreamworld kind.
“If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search. At that time, voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV,” Samsung told The Guardian.
The third party is believed to be voice recognition firm Nuance, the company behind Apple’s Siri.
As CNet reminds us, LG was embroiled in a privacy controversy in 2013, sending information back to the Korean company about what programmes you had watched, and even what files you may have stored on a USB disks attached to them.
The company promised to change its policies.
Hollywood Reporter also takes the issue further by asking what if internet-connected TVs with microphones could be hacked? Who’s listening to us then?
“Smart TVs have been shown to contain security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious hackers to access them remotely and run harmful code,” writes the US Software Freedom Conservancy.
“Some of these also make use of a Smart TVs’ built-in microphone and camera. In sum, research on the security of the Smart TVs on the market strongly suggests that manufacturers do not build sufficient privacy or security safeguards into their TVs.”
Now Gogglebox is watching the families back….
Source: Fairfax
Share
- Tagged with Gogglebox
16 Responses
The “boffins” have gone too far this time! Such technology should be banned outright to protect what little privacy we still have. These “boffins” spend all their time designing new-fangled devices that they know how to use, full of tricks, bells and whistles, but give absolutely no thought whatsoever to the end user. With technology today it’s no longer a question of “can we develop some new way of watching TV, listening to radio/music/whatever?” It’s a question of “should we…? And the answer is a loud, clear, thundering no!(I’d type that in capital letters but David K. doesn’t want “shouting!) Gotta say though, Matt F.’s comment, “Every time my Uncle farts in front of his smart TV, it switches to a reality show” is very appropriate for that kind of rubbish TV!
Correct. Shouting is banned. Now we have sorted this out after 8 years can we please move on?
David, if all you could pick up on was the bit about “shouting”, better not make a reply at all! My comment was about so-called “boffins” developing more whizz-bang gadgets that we don’t really need, and making them damn-near impossible for us “consumers” to use them.
Yes, essentially reiterating the story and headline.
Read this on tech news sites y’day morning. Sold my Samsung shares in the afternoon.
My ipad often listens to me, even though ive switched the “hey siri” feature off. It comes on all the time when im watching TV . IT’s quite annoying. I wouldnt want my TV doing that as well.
Normally if you computer’s camera is on a light is on next to it but I’ve been told hackers can turn the light off so you’ll never know if the camera is on. Don’t know if this applies with TV that also have camera’s built in.
I was wondering is the irony of Gogglebox would be mentioned LOL
My Laptop has black tape over the camera, and the mic is disabled, I’m not taking any chances!
Er, no thanks. I’ll stick with my hand-held remote and PVR. I would never have a TV with a built-in camera and microphone in my house. Lost me, Samsung.
What boggles me is that we do have such smart TVs these days, and yet our ratings system is still so inaccurate. I mean surely they have the means now to literally know what everyone is watching.
No, a huge percentage of viewers would not want their viewing monitored. It’s bad enough having website searches tracked, to be then bombarded with supposedly “relevant” ads. The current rating system is as accurate as the polling companies, whose figures are accepted as they are so similar.
The alternative is being bombarded by completely irrelevant ads.
There is a third alternative. You don’t need to be bombarded with any ads at all. As a bonus, it takes less time to watch your shows so you can fit another in or do something else. Come on in, the water’s fine.
And what is your evidence for the claimed inaccuracy of the ratings?
My Uncle Reg farts a lot. Wonder what the TV would make of those sounds emanating 24/7?
Every time my Uncle farts in front of his smart TV, it switches to a reality show.