your intelligent TV is monitoring you and your viewing habits. Realistically, it’s not the sole device or platform where this occurs. What’s more concerning, at least according to a lawsuit from Texas, is that it is allegedly happening without your approval. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is filing a lawsuit against five television manufacturers — Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL — asserting that these companies are employing ad-targeted spyware to track what viewers are watching. The lawsuit alleges that, through Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology, firms “capture images of a user’s television screen every 500 milliseconds,” to monitor what they are viewing or engaging in. Subsequently, TVs “send that data back to the company without the user’s awareness or consent.”
You may recognize ACR as the technology enabling companies to observe what you view on devices connected to your TV’s HDMI inputs. The Texas lawsuit also claims that television companies profit by selling the data they gather to “target advertisements across various platforms.” However, in pursuit of this profit, these companies are accused of jeopardizing user privacy and sensitive information. “This behavior is intrusive, misleading, and illegal,” states Paxton. He emphasizes that individuals’ “basic right to privacy” will be safeguarded in the state. While “Big Tech” is referenced, Paxton specifically calls out corporations “linked to the Chinese Communist Party,” who ought “to have no right to illegally document Americans’ devices within their own residences.” He also notes that Hisense and TCL are headquartered in China.
In light of breaches of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the Attorney General is pursuing damages of up to $10,000 for each infraction, and up to $250,000 for violations impacting individuals aged 65 or older. The state is also expressing interest in injunctions to prevent data collection, selling, and sharing while the lawsuits are in progress.
