These smart TVs are accused of tracking users, amassing their data — and selling it

The smart TV on your wall isn’t just for watching shows and movies. It also might be spying on you. A bombshell report claims that some smart TVs are recording living room conversations, storing unencrypted transcripts, and sucking up other private data, all for “advertising” purposes. Here’s what you need to know and how to stop it.

During a two-hour video posted by Gamers Nexus, editor in chief Steve Burke argued that LG’s smart TVs can suck up an enormous amount of information about their users.

If you own a smart TV of any kind whatsoever, you’re still not completely safe.

“We were able to retrieve plain-text transcripts of voice conversations and inputs from the TV,” Burke claimed. His team also maintained that audio and video could be recorded and saved to a remote device, even while the TV was disconnected from the internet.

While the alleged conversation-recording capabilities would be the most alarming discovery, users could also face siphoning of other personal data. Burke said his test LG TV scoured his data network and saved an entire list of smart devices that were also linked to the same Wi-Fi address, including iPhones, Android devices, Apple Watches, routers, printers, PCs, and more. Burke further claimed it also marked down the IP address for the host network, as well as the individual IP addresses of the other located devices, and marked down the TV’s geographical location and the names of other nearby Wi-Fi networks.

That would amount to just about all the information available to the device.

Ultimately, Burke and others suggest, LG compiles this information and sells it to advertisers so that they can serve customers targeted ads through their LG Ad Solutions network. Gamers Nexus further claims, however, that LG and its partners aren’t the only ones that can access this data. Hackers may also get ahold of it through “remote code execution” vulnerabilities where they take control of a TV and manipulate its behavior.

To be clear, LG denied all of Burke’s claims. The company pushed back forcefully.

The claims made in the recently published video are not true. LG TVs process voice data only when the voice button on the remote control is pressed and held or when a wake word such as “Hi LG” is recognized after the user has activated the Far-Field voice recognition feature. Other than these instances, the TVs do not collect or record ambient conversations. (If the wake word is not recognized, no voice data is transmitted to the server; the audio processing for wake word detection is performed locally on the device and is immediately deleted.)

So where does this leave users?

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Pat Gray Unleashed

At this point, whether or not you might worry about LG smart TVs in your home that might be recording your conversations, you might think you’re in the clear because you have an other-branded TV on the wall. Unfortunately, if you own a smart TV of any kind whatsoever, you’re still not completely safe.

Shortly after Burke published the initial video alleging LG’s surveillance machine, the Verge, a longtime mainstream tech media outlet, claimed that all smart TVs track their users through automatic content recognition. Built into most modern TVs, ACR monitors your screen to see what you watch. It can also capture audio and video from viewing sessions and send them to a server to help the TV provider deliver content recommendations or sell targeted ads.

Granted, ACR isn’t nearly as invasive as LG’s audio surveillance discovery is claimed to be, but it still proves that, at the very least, your viewing habits are being watched and monetized out from under you.

That brings us to the solution. If you own an LG TV and you’re wondering what to do next, here are some tips that can help.

1. Wipe and restore your smart TV as new. This process is a little different, depending on the year of your LG TV, but the goal is ultimately the same. We want to wipe any local data your TV already captured and stored, including surveillance data.
2. Disconnect your TV from the internet. Cut off Wi-Fi access and unplug any ethernet cables attached to the back panel. If your TV can’t connect to the internet, it can’t transmit surveillance data. That said, Gamers Nexus discovered that LG TVs still capture conversations while disconnected, and they can relay transcripts if that connection is ever restored, so ensure you keep your LG TV away from your Wi-Fi for good.
3. Give your TV a new brain. Since you now effectively turned your smart TV back into a dumb TV, you can get back some smart functionality by connecting a separate streaming device, preferably without ACR. Non-ACR options include the Apple TV and the Google TV Streamer, while Fire TV and Roku both come with ACR technology built in.

The best way to stop smart TV companies from spying on you is not to own a smart TV at all. However, new dumb TVs are hard to find these days, especially in larger form factors. At the very least, if you do plan to buy a new TV soon, shop carefully, and watch as events unfold.

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