Samsung to Customers: Mind Your Mouth Because We're
Listening
Monday, 09 Feb 2015 07:22 PM
By Sean Piccoli
The voice-command feature of the Samsung brand SmartTV comes with
a disclaimer that has privacy activists alarmed, according to reports about a
previously little-noticed passage in the paperwork for the advanced appliance.
"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," users are informed about halfway into the SmartTV's almost 1,500-word "privacy policy."
The Daily Beast first reported on the provision in a story headlined, "Your Samsung SmartTV is Spying on You, Basically."
"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," users are informed about halfway into the SmartTV's almost 1,500-word "privacy policy."
The Daily Beast first reported on the provision in a story headlined, "Your Samsung SmartTV is Spying on You, Basically."
Samsung is the second smart-set maker to catch flack for the
snooping capabilities of its products, after LG
was found to have put a data-recording feature in its televisions.
LG has since made the feature optional.
Collecting voice data for the SmartTV appears to be intended "to improve the TV's performance" in recognizing and correctly responding to voice commands such as requests for channel changes and particular programs, The Daily Beast reports.
But a privacy activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Corynne McSherry, told The Daily Beast, "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.”
Samsung issued a statement to The Daily Beast on Friday in response to the uproar assuring people that all SmartTVs employ "industry-standard security safeguards and practices, including data encryption, to secure consumers' personal information and prevent unauthorized collection or use."
LG has since made the feature optional.
Collecting voice data for the SmartTV appears to be intended "to improve the TV's performance" in recognizing and correctly responding to voice commands such as requests for channel changes and particular programs, The Daily Beast reports.
But a privacy activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Corynne McSherry, told The Daily Beast, "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.”
Samsung issued a statement to The Daily Beast on Friday in response to the uproar assuring people that all SmartTVs employ "industry-standard security safeguards and practices, including data encryption, to secure consumers' personal information and prevent unauthorized collection or use."
Samsung also gave a separate statement to the BBC
explaining how the voice-command feature works, but it did not disclose who or
what the third party is beyond saying, "the voice data is sent to a
server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired
content to the TV."
A SmartTV owner, Peter Kent, told the BBC that he was "a bit annoyed" at Samsung for putting the information about what gets recorded in an obscure place.
"Nobody reads the terms and conditions," he said.
"It makes me think twice" about using the voice recognition feature, he said.
In its privacy policy and public statements, Samsung says the feature can be de-activated in the television's settings menu, and is only switched on and in operation when a microphone logo is visible on the television screen.
But privacy activists remain uneasy.
"So it comes with a spooky Orwellian 'feature,' but you don't have to turn it on," Parker Higgins, also of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote on Twitter.
Higgins also offered a side-by-side comparison of the SmartTV' privacy boilerplate with a passage from George Orwell's "1984," that begins, "Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up … "
A SmartTV owner, Peter Kent, told the BBC that he was "a bit annoyed" at Samsung for putting the information about what gets recorded in an obscure place.
"Nobody reads the terms and conditions," he said.
"It makes me think twice" about using the voice recognition feature, he said.
In its privacy policy and public statements, Samsung says the feature can be de-activated in the television's settings menu, and is only switched on and in operation when a microphone logo is visible on the television screen.
But privacy activists remain uneasy.
"So it comes with a spooky Orwellian 'feature,' but you don't have to turn it on," Parker Higgins, also of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote on Twitter.
Higgins also offered a side-by-side comparison of the SmartTV' privacy boilerplate with a passage from George Orwell's "1984," that begins, "Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up … "
Daily Beast
Christopher
Buckley was a blogger at the Daily
Beast, George H.W. Bush’s
speechwriter, and is a member of the Bohemian
Club.
Note: George H.W. Bush’s
speechwriter was Christopher Buckley,
and is a member of the Bohemian Club.
Bob
Weir is a member of the Bohemian
Club, and the founder of the Grateful
Dead.
Mickey
Hart is a member of the Bohemian
Club, and was the drummer for the Grateful
Dead.
John Perry Barlow
was a lyricist for the Grateful Dead,
and is a co-founder & director for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
Downey
McGrath Group was the lobby firm for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a funder for the Center for American Progress.
Center
for American Progress was a funder for the Samsung Electronics Co.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Center for American Progress.
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, was a supporter for the Center for American Progress, and the
chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Center for American Progress, the Aspen Institute (think tank), and the International Rescue Committee.
Madeleine K.
Albright is a director at the Center
for American Progress, a professor at Georgetown
University, a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank), and an overseer at the International Rescue Committee.
Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding was a center
at Georgetown University.
Alwaleed bin
Talal is a benefactor at the Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, the Saudi Arabia prince, and an investor in
Twitter Inc.
Henry A. Kissinger was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tankis an overseer at the International Rescue
Committee, a member of the Bohemian
Club, a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank),
and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Christopher
Buckley is a member of the Bohemian
Club, was George H.W. Bush’s
speechwriter, and a blogger at the Daily
Beast.
George
H.W. Bush’s speechwriter was Christopher
Buckley, and is a member of the Bohemian
Club.
George H. W. Bush New World Order Quotes
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