Do you remember that Samsung was hit by a controversy about their Smart TV that violated users’ privacy? Now we’re back at it again: VIZIO, a high-class TV marker in the USA, will pay a fine of $2,200,000. Its smart devices tracked everything users did. Data were then transmitted to the company servers and then sold to third-party.
Not every smart TV track our activity to sell out your information without you knowing it, but it’s well known that most of them monitor our behavior. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to stop smart TV to attempt to our privacy.
How to defend our privacy from Smart TV: detach them from the internet
It may sound harsh, maybe it makes no sense for somebody, but it’s the best way to protect our privacy from prying smart TV: detach them from the internet. Be honest: how many “smart” features do you really use? Not much, right? If you can’t live without Netflix, you can turn the connection on again when you actually need it, so to drastically limit your TV leaking your habits. You can also choose to get some set-up box like Apple TV or Google Chromecast, that respect your privacy.
How to defend our privacy from Smart TV: turn off features
If you prefer not to disconnect your TV, you can protect yourself, verifying which data are (or can be) tracked.
LG Smart TV with new webOS installed: there’s no automated data sharing, which was there with older versions of webOS. You can go to Options > Live Plus and uncheck the service, anyway.
Samsung Smart TV: you’ll be asked to agree to habits tracking. If you already accepted it, and want to change that, you can go to Smart Hub Menu > Terms & Policy > SyncPlus and Marketing, turn off this feature. Go then to Voice Recognition Services and turn that off too: in 2015 Samsung TVs were listening to everything was happening around them. The company changed its course, claiming that now its TVs listen only when expressly called for. Do you trust them?
Sony Smart TV: we’ll found Android TV, which adheres to Google policy for data harvest. We know that Sony tracks habits by voice & sound recognition, so you can deactivate this feature by not accepting its policy, when you turn the TV on for the first time.
Please note that any connected device can track your habits, but you can actively find what they are tracking and opt-out from almost everything.