Samsung's warning: Our Smart TVs record your living room chatter

[Jedi Knight]

Technically Incorrect: Samsung's small print says that its Smart TV's voice recognition system will not only capture your private conversations, but also pass them onto third parties. http://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-warning-our-smart-tvs-record-your-living-room-chatter/ A little too smart?

 

[InTheLight]

TV only listens to voice command if the voice command catch phrase is invoked, activating the system to listen.

 

[Jedi Knight]

TV only listens to voice command if the voice command catch phrase is invoked, activating the system to listen.

Sorry ITL I forgot link BUT notice the later part of the Samsung Privacy Policy
"You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands.
If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. 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 through your use of Voice Recognition"

 

[poncho]

And who is that third party?

 

[Jedi Knight]

And who is that third party?

Very good question....remember Google,Microsoft,Yahoo,ect was made to tell all information collected to the Gov.

 

[poncho]

Very good question....remember Google,Microsoft,Yahoo,ect was made to tell all information collected to the Gov.

I do remember. I also remember the govt looks at us all as if we're all criminals that need to have our every word and movement tracked, traced and recorded.

 

[Jedi Knight]

I do remember. I also remember the govt looks at us all as if we're all criminals that need to have our every word and movement tracked, traced and recorded.

Microsoft's game console Xbox One came under fire for the Kinect Camera always watching and listening to you.

 

[poncho]

Microsoft's game console Xbox One came under fire for the Kinect Camera always watching and listening to you.

I remember that also. Another thing to consider is how easily hacked all this new smart technology is.

But as the prevailing wisdom goes "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide".

 

[Jedi Knight]

But as the prevailing wisdom goes "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide".

Like Tom Cruise? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2UVsyVLLcE

 

[poncho]

Like Tom Cruise? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2UVsyVLLcE

Who needs privacy when you can have safety instead?

 

[Jedi Knight]

I heard several news raise an eyebrow "radio and TV" about this story today.

 

[InTheLight]

I heard several news raise an eyebrow "radio and TV" about this story today.

Likely uninformed people jumping to wrong conclusions. The system only listens and responds if:

* Voice Recognition is on
AND
* A trigger phrase is used, i.e. "Hi Samsung TV, change channel to 164"
OR
* user presses Voice Function button on remote
AND
* user speaks words from among the preset phrases the TV software has been programmed to recognize, i.e. "Turn volume up to 8."

If you say "I think Rand Paul is going to win the Iowa caucuses", no one except people in the room will hear you and the TV will not respond.

 

[poncho]

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. ” Zbigniew Brzeziński

 

[Jedi Knight]

Likely uninformed people jumping to wrong conclusions.

kind of you to give folks the benefit of the doubt but you should read about the warning a bit closer.

 

[InTheLight]

kind of you to give folks the benefit of the doubt but you should read about the warning a bit closer.

I read one of the Samsung owners manual. I have an LG TV that uses the same technology. I know how these software systems work. The privacy statement is deliberately worded to cover a multitude of scenarios, real or imagined. It's a CYA document.

 

[InTheLight]

Samsung has issued a new privacy policy to clear up any misunderstanding. There are two voice recognition systems--one that has a microphone in the TV set and responds only to simple pre-programmed commands, i.e. "change channel to 124", "turn volume up". When using this feature no voice data is transmitted.

The other voice recognition system has a microphone in the remote and only works when you press a button on the remote. This is used for searching for content, "find me movies starring Tom Hanks", "When is the next NBA basketball game on?" Voice is sent to servers where it is converted to text and then a search is done to find the content. No idea how long this info is kept on the servers but I would imagine less than a month, probably less than a week (or however distant in the future TV programming is stored on the servers for searches to be performed.)

http://www.connectedly.com/samsung-...voice-recognition-terms-wake-privacy-concersn

So there is no passive listening to your conversations.

 

[Jedi Knight]

So there is no passive listening to your conversations.

You think you're some kind of Jedi, waving your hand around like that??

 

[Gina B]

You think you're some kind of Jedi, waving your hand around like that??

You did it now, ITL!