Don’t you just hate it when your smart TV spies on you? Wait, what? According to a blogby a UK IT consultant, Jason Huntley, it seems that he has discovered that his LG smart TV is actually spying on him, and are sending data about him and what kind of channels that he watches. On top of that, it seems that the TV was also sending data about what sort of devices are attached to the TV, presumably in a bid to better understand consumers as well as potentially craft ads that would cater to a specific type of viewer as well, similar to how Google ads are catered to the type of searches that you perform.
This was discovered when ads started to appear on the Smart landing screen, and further digging found an option called “Collection of watching info” which was set to On by default. However it turns out that despite setting it to Off, data was still being sent anyway. According to the email Huntley received, the LG rep tells him that he has basically accepted the T&C when using the device, and there’s pretty much nothing he can do about it.
However when the BBC contacted LG, they claim that they are investigating the matter, with a spokesperson claiming, “We have recently been made aware of a possible data breach which may involve LG Smart TVs […] We will be making enquiries into the circumstances of the alleged breach of the Data Protection Act before deciding what action, if any, needs to be taken.”