Fragile Bird Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I heard some comments today about your television picking up and recording your conversations, and I thought that it was either a joke or a discussion about a movie plot. Nope. Samsung's new smart tvs will pick up your conversations. And if you disable that feature, it will still keep records of any text messages you might send using your tv screen. Tucked into the privacy policy of the South Korean electronics behemoth's Smart TV are a few paragraphs that may send chills down the spine of some consumers. According to the document, the unit's voice recognition protocols can "capture voice commands and associated texts so that [samsung] can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features." The boilerplate languagewhich granted few people read in its entiretysounds fairly anodyne. That is, until the company adds this warning: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition." The TV's voice features can be disabled. However, the company adds another caveat: "While Samsung will not collect your spoken word, Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it." http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/shhh-not-front-tv-samsung-may-be-eavesdropping-you-n302876 I don't have a smart tv, but I suspect the next one I buy will be some sort of smart tv. And if I don't like this, one day it will probably be unavoidable. If not your tv, your stove or your fridge will be picking up information about you, in order "to serve you better". Comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
felice Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Creepy and unnecessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluetiger Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Good , that I don't have something that would even resemble "smart" TV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1234567 Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Well it's a little late in coming, 1984 was 31 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Thursday Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I dont want my tv to know all my dirty and gritty details.When did tvs become secret police anyway?When did Samsung sit down and think "hey this will be a great idea! I suspect their thinking was more: - We want to provide people with voice activation on their TVs [All good so far]- It's difficult to determine when people are actually giving a command to their TV [You could just have a push to talk button, but I guess that's alright...]- Let's just record everything! [Oh dear] And having realised that there may be some legal complications they decided to just put a disclaimer in the T&Cs and hope nobody would notice. I'm sure law enforcement are not above attempting to hijack this to use as a spying tool, but Occam's Razor (to me anyway) would seem to preclude them from being involved here. Samsung chose the easiest, most civil-liberties infringing method of implementing voice activation is a much simpler explanation. ST Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 My TV is circa 1995. I doubt it is recording my conversations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impmk2 Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I suspect their thinking was more: - We want to provide people with voice activation on their TVs [All good so far] - It's difficult to determine when people are actually giving a command to their TV [You could just have a push to talk button, but I guess that's alright...] - Let's just record everything! [Oh dear] And having realised that there may be some legal complications they decided to just put a disclaimer in the T&Cs and hope nobody would notice. I'm sure law enforcement are not above attempting to hijack this to use as a spying tool, but Occam's Razor (to me anyway) would seem to preclude them from being involved here. Samsung chose the easiest, most civil-liberties infringing method of implementing voice activation is a much simpler explanation. ST The article posted in the OP seems overly sensationalized - not surprisingly. Here's the BBC version. The short of it, it isn't recording everything you say, you do have to push a button to issue a command. The issue is if you, or someone else in the room is having a private conversation around that button push it can be recorded and sent back to the firm providing voice recognition. However you can turn the voice command feature off. As to why anyone would text using a TV? A phone seems far more convient to me, and I'm pretty sure your phone carrier would be keeping a copy of those in any case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theda Baratheon Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Ive never been happier to not have a TV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 My TV is circa 1995. I doubt it is recording my conversations. That is what it wants you to think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
all swedes are racist Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Holy shit, my meth head friend was right after all!?!!! Who knew.Hahahah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragile Bird Posted February 10, 2015 Author Share Posted February 10, 2015 While I have seen some more discussion about this, including the fact that when you use voice activation you are holding down a button, there is some risk that conversations going on while you are holding down the button will be picked up. One answer is to disengage the voice activation feature, but I would think people are buying these kinds of tvs for the cool factor. You don't have to go searching through a menu or through dozens or hundreds of channels to find something you want. And if you don't think that makes sense, I grew up during the introduction of the tv remote. We sneered at first at the idea of needing a remote. Hell, we only had a dozen channels to choose from. But once there were 57 channels (and nothing on) the remote was just gold, and the game of scrolling through every channel was created. With hundreds of channels available now, being able to tell the tv what you want to watch sounds cool. And who knows, maybe there will be a time soon when the voice activation is always on. Someone was saying that Siri seems to be able to come on by herself somehow: they were talking to their wife when all of a sudden this voice speaks up on the other side of the room, saying "Sorry, I didn't understand that". And, of course, buttons break... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 This is why I've recorded every conversation I've ever had with my TV. If I ever go missing, my lawyer is going to wreak havoc with those audio files. It's called being a smart consumer. I also record all the conversations I have with my blender, my toaster, and my light bright. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 This reminds me of a conversation I had a few months ago with a group of my fellow crazy friends where we noted the fact that the mainstream has now claimed one of our most useful forms of insanity expression. Stating the belief that we are being spied on by the government or big business will no longer be a signal to our friends or family that we are in crisis and need assistance because everyone else is also fretting about being monitored by government or big business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loge Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Your conversations in front of the TV set are of limited commercial value. The NSA might be interested though. On the other hand, I'd expect Samsung to monitor your TV watching habits. Future TV sets will probably detect how many people are sitting in front of them, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
litechick Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 I guess all we can do is sit back and wait for the first TV Dirty Talk Celebrity. Surely someone will deliberately talk dirty to the TV and become an internet sensation once the recordings get leaked. It could be you! Get to it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horza Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Man, it's a good thing it's only a TV, could you imagine if people carried around miniature smart TVs with GPS, mics and cameras with them all the time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solmyr Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Do people even use TVs anymore? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loge Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Here is another fun bit. Apparently some Samsung TV sets put ads into the user's own content. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/samsung-smart-tvs-inserting-ads-into-third-party-apps/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragile Bird Posted February 11, 2015 Author Share Posted February 11, 2015 :lol: Samsung's partnership with Yahoo to serve pop-up ads on its smart TVs was reported in mid-January by David Chartier, but it didn't receive much notice as Samsung later promised Business Insider that the ads would be “opt-in” rather than appear automatically. “Samsung has been working with consumers and with strategic partners since 2011 to explore and develop more interactive smartTV features that will allow consumers the choice to experience a new generation of home entertainment,” the company said in a statement at the time. But, a month later, the ads are still showing up automatically while users are watching media they own. I think that confirms the fact my next tv won't be a Samsung. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragile Bird Posted February 12, 2015 Author Share Posted February 12, 2015 Wow, 4 tvs listening in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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