Your TV is a ‘mass surveillance system’ says Texas, and the state is suing LG, Samsung, Hisense, TCL, and more to stop it

Your smart TV may be a little too smart. A Texas lawmaker is suing five major TV manufacturers, claiming they're surveilling what you watch to build profiles and serve up advertising...or to do worse.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a suit on Monday against Samsung, Sony, LG, TCL, and Hisense, claiming in a press release that they "have been unlawfully collecting personal data through Automated Content Recognition ("ACR”) technology."

Paxton goes on to label ACR as "an uninvited, invisible digital invader," and in one of the five separately filed suits, he calls Samsung TVs "a mass surveillance system."

What is ACR? The now more than a decade-old technology has a long history dating back to Shazam's use in 2011 and another company, Samba TV, which patented its own ACR tech that same year. Most of the early uses revolved around sound and music recognition. The technology ultimately added image or snapshot collection (and image recognition) and eventually made its way to 4K smart TVs.

What ACR does and why you might worry

Companies like LG, Hisense, Samsung, and others apparently now use ACR to identify what you're watching and connect you with relevant content, marketing, and advertising.

Paxton's suit claims that these ACR systems can capture screenshots of viewing habits as often as every 500 milliseconds and that the TV manufacturers "transmit that information back to the company without the user’s knowledge or consent."

Generally, though, data specific to who you are, like name, photos, address, etc, are not part of that delivery. Instead, third-party partners get information about content interests, and TVs or TV companies act as middlemen, delivering related content recommendations and advertising.

This is not the first time ACR systems have run afoul of the law. Back in 2017, Vizo paid a $2 million fine to the FTC to settle a claim that it was monitoring viewing histories without proper consent.

There is no question that these systems exist. On a test LG TV in our labs, we spent some time navigating to a well-hidden Live Plus setting.

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Live Plus is LG's version of ACR, and, as LG describes it, when you enable it, "the content displayed on your TV can be recognized, and the viewing information may be used to provide you with an enhanced viewing experience and personalized services including content recommendations and advertisements."

We never enabled Live Plus, and it appeared to be on by default. However, it's also possible that during setup, the TV may have asked if we'd like "an enhanced and personalized viewing experience." Who wouldn't say yes to that?

Paxton's concerns, though, go beyond mere advertising and marketing. He notes that some of these TV companies, like TCL and Hisense, are based in China. "Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” said Paxton in the release.

What's next

When we contacted the manufacturers for comment, TCL told us it "does not comment on active litigation." Sony told us, "it does not comment on pending legal matters." Hisense told us, "Hisense stands by the high quality of its products. Per company policy, we are unable to comment further on topics of a litigious nature." We have yet to hear back from Samsung and LG.

Whatever happens with this lawsuit, it might be a good time to check on your smart TVs ACR settings, see if they're enabled, and perhaps turn them off if you don't want one of these companies watching what you're watching.

Most reports we read, said that disabling ACR turns off all communications between the TVs and ACR servers. Just remember, the next ads and TV show recommendations you see on your smart TV may have little to do with your interests.

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1. Best overall:
LG C5
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