Tech giant Samsung has warned customers not to discuss private or sensitive information in front of their Smart TV sets. Concerns have been raised that Smart TV owners using the voice activation feature may be unwittingly giving information to third parties.
The company says that the TV sets “listen” to all conversations held whilst the feature is switched on. Privacy campaigners have compared the machines to the “telescreens” featured in George Orwell’s novel 1984, which were used to spy on citizens.
The warning comes after a story in online news service The Daily Beast published part of Samsung’s privacy policy regarding its Smart TVs. The policy says that the TV will listen to conversations to try and work out when they are being instructed. It says: “If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”
It’s thought that the third-party in question is likely to be the company providing speech-to-text conversion for the manufacturer. Samsung has said that it takes privacy “very seriously” and does not retain voice data after verbal instructions have been transferred into content. The third-party delivering the conversion has not been identified. Samsung recently announced a significant fall in earnings.