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Samsung’s range of smart TVs collect data from users, including spoken conversations.
The devices listen in on what is being said nearby, and send this data along with other sensitive information to a third party company that converts speech to text, reports the Register.
The Samsung privacy policy states: “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 serve that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you.”
If that was worrying enough, the policy concluded: “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 if voice recognition.”
Even if users turn off the voice recognition feature, it still gathers associated texts and other usage information from them to improve that unused tool.
Samsung has said that the data is encrypted and cannot be accessed or used by unauthorised parties, but this hasn’t stopped outside threats to security in the past. Think Sony.
In other Samsung news: The tech company spoke to PCR following a press conference showcasing a variety of new SSD’s. See what it had to say here.
