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Wednesday, February 11th, 2015

Not in front of the telly: Warning over ‘listening’ TV

Author:    
Source:     BBC News (U.K.)
Publication Date:     9 February 2015 | 06:20 ET
 Link: Not in front of the telly: Warning over ‘listening’ TV
Stephan:   I think most of us find it hard to comprehend that everything we say on our mobile phones, everything we view or send on our computers, tablets or phones is under surveillance, as we ourselves are under surveillance because of the ubiquity of CCTV. But this development is really creepy. If you have the latest iteration of television set you better be careful what you say as you are sitting comfortably in your family room, living room, or kitchen. Or lying in bed with someone. Why? Because as the story explains your television's voice command feature can be activated to record you, as you are looking and listening to your television. I also have to admit that at the advice of my computer maintenance guru I have a sticky note covering the camera on my iMac. Apparently it is possible to turn it on, without my being aware that is happening, and the same can be done with the microphone on my iPhone and computer. Since I sit by myself in my writing studio, not much gets said, so I am less concerned about the audio but I find the whole 24/7 surveillance trend very creepy.

Samsung is warning customers about discussing personal information in front of their smart television set. (emphasis added)

The warning applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.

When the feature is active, such TV sets “listen” to what is said and may share what they hear with Samsung or third parties, it said.

Privacy campaigners said the technology smacked of the telescreens, in George Orwell’s 1984, which spied on citizens.

Data sharing

The warning came to light via a story in online news magazine the Daily Beast which published an excerpt of a section of Samsung’s privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets. These record what is said when a button on a remote control is pressed.

Smart TV owner Peter Kent: “It makes me think twice”

The policy explains that the TV set will be listening to people in the same room to try to spot when commands or queries are issued via the remote. It goes on to say: “If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”

Corynne McSherry, an intellectual property lawyer for the […]

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