Careful – your television and remote control may be spying on you, listening and recording every word you say, and passing them on to unidentified listeners.
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, has sounded a warning that some "smart" TVs and remotes may be too smart for your own good, and could be eavesdropping on your private conversations,
The Hill reports.
In a letter to Samsung North America CEO Gregory Lee,
Franken wrote: "This relatively new technology has major implications for people's privacy and I am concerned about the extent to which Samsung may be collecting and sharing SmartTV users' voice data.
"I am concerned that Samsung currently does not provide consumers with the information needed to understand how their voice data may be used by third parties."
Franken sent a similar letter to William Cho, president of
LG Electronics.
Samsung, in the instructions which come with its SmartTV, cautions: "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,"
the Daily Beast reports.
The company noted in a web post that the TVs contain
two microphones, one in the set and one in the remote, which are part of the voice command feature.
Samsung writes that encrypted voice commands are shared with Nuance Communications, Inc., which translates them into text commands, but does not specify if other third parties receive the information. The company notes that the feature can be disabled, but adds, "however, this may prevent you from using some of the voice recognition features."
Corynne McSherry, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Daily Beast: "Samsung may just be giving itself some wiggle room as the service evolves, but that language could be interpreted pretty broadly.
"If I were the customer, I might like to know who that third party was, and I'd definitely like to know whether my words were being transmitted in a secure form."
Michael Price, counsel at the Liberty and National Security Program at the New York University School of Law,
told Salon: "The Internet connection makes the whole TV vulnerable to hackers who have demonstrated the ability to take complete control of the machine.
"The FBI will not have to bug your living room; you will do it yourself. We should not have to channel surf worried that the TV is recording our behavior for the benefit of advertisers and police."
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