Your LG TV is spying on you

No it’s not click bait.

Notebookcheck reports LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices:

An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.

The 2:15 hours long video from Gamer Nexus (YouTube link to video) will show you the extent (please watch it if you want to have a more detailled version of what I’m quickly summarising here).

LG WebTV OS is past The Law stage: it is designed to spying on you to show targetted ads, and to sell that information as well. It is not designed for a user experience in content watching. As some commenters on the video says: “That explain why the UI is so slow: it’s too busy doing all of that spying”. Another technology embedded is ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) which is used to spy on what you watch that doesn’t go through the TV operating system but through the HDMI inputs. ACR isn’t new, it has been talked about in the past and is also performed by other vendors like Samsung and Roku (the latter is a platform found on various lower end screens).

The testing was done on a few TV models sold in the US, it may not apply to all and every country, but nontheless. They claim to have 216 million smart TV globally and 363 million of other “addressable” devices. And GN found vulnerabilities that allow remotely run code on TVs.

The GN documentary show interviews of LG Ads executives saying words like “The glass belong to us”, “The living room belong to us”, “We know everything about the devices in the location”, etc. It’s so brazen it’s not even an accident.

It is surprising that no regulator or prosecutor have gone after LG. A lot of what they are doing would run afoul of privacy law (GDPR in Europe for example) and computer crime (like scanning networks and reporting what’s on it). At that point the matter should be handled as national security. A TV that spy on people is national security, and it seems to be the only important to be on Governments radar, unlike individuals privacy…

Don’t. Buy. LG. Ever.

Not that other vendors don’t do that.

Update: Added a direct link to the video Minor typos, rewords.