Might want to watch what you say in front of your Smart TV
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – With hundreds of channels and seemingly limitless OnDemand options, it’s easier to say what you want than manually find it with the remote control.
You want to watch “The Terminator” and realize it’s a lot easier to say “Arnold Schwarzenegger” than spell it.
But talking to your Smart TV is not one-way communication. You are now in a relationship with an electronic device.
“That’s what you’re looking for. You would like the opportunity to have a predictive technology that’s going to find what you need and make it available to you without having to search and find it,” said Bill Perkins, sales manager for HH Gregg.
But once you press that button, anything you say will be gathered by a third party.
For example, Samsung says, “We collect, use, share, and store information through your Smart TV in the ways described in the Samsung privacy policy … Some interactive voice commands may be transmitted to a third party, currently Nuance Communications.”
When you’re shopping for a TV, privacy is probably not your first concern. It’s the picture quality and the price.
But now that these devices are connected to the Internet, there are a few things you should know.
“If you are indiscriminately yelling out your credit card information or your social security number while you’re doing voice recognition, yea it’s going to a third party or someone processing that data,” said Perkins.
But if privacy is important to you, keep that in mind when you press the voice activation button, because unlike your really old analog or HD TV, your Smart TVs are listening.
On its website, Samsung reminds you that you can deactivate the voice recognition feature at any time.