Can a Smart TV Violate your Privacy?
The story sounds like it comes directly from Orwellian fiction – your television may be listening to every word you are saying, and transmitting it to a third party – but that is exactly the news coming from Samsung. The newest Samsung Smart TV’s are utilizing technologies to recognize voice commands, but to do so, they may be recording everything you say around it. So, we are left to wonder: what is Samsung going to do with this information anyway? Even weirder, what are the consequences of the TV “listening” to us when we are not issuing television commands, but just talking in our households?
Most of us are familiar with the idea of TV networks compiling data on our TV usage and viewing habits. But, most of us are probably not familiar or comfortable with the idea that a television can capture all our private communication – and all the time.
For those not yet chilled by the 1984-like aspects of an omnipresent listening device in their home, that’s not all: the recorded voice interactions may be transmitted to a third party. In theory, all of that conversation is sent to a third party for processing, archiving and to help your TV recognize your accent, speech patterns and pronunciations better. But then what? That is the question tech watchers are asking now. Samsung hasn’t divulged where this information is going, or if it will be saved. They do point out that “In all of our Smart TVs we employ industry-standard security safeguards and practices, including data encryption, to secure consumers’ personal information and prevent unauthorized collection or use.”
How reassuring that is relates directly to how much you trust technology. Voice recognition software is all around us, from the ever-popular Apple Siri, to Google Voice and even X-Box Kinect. We use speech recognition to navigate a doctor’s office phone system, call a friend while driving and look up Italian restaurants in a neighborhood. The general belief has been the data exchange stops there. But what if it doesn’t?
Would you feel comfortable discussing your banking information in a room with a voice-enabled Smart TV? Or repeating a social security number, or even personal information? These are the questions that we must ask ourselves. Samsung points out that it is not selling the information that is captured, nor will it, and that anytime recording is taking place, an icon is visible. Finally, the user still has the option to turn the device, or just that service, off.
Still, it’s enough to give a consumer pause. And with the growing proliferation of tech goods that we expect to provide convenient, advanced, and sometimes even predictive content or service, it is a good reminder that there is always a give and take on the information highway.
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