Samsung is warning people not to discuss personal or sensitive information within earshot of its smart televisions, BBC reports.
Don't discuss personal data in front of your smart TV in case it's listening, Samsung warns http://t.co/uNdiL1kmqr pic.twitter.com/v5iWmOo2OA
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 9, 2015
The South Korean company says voice recognition software used by the TVs can listen to the conversations and share any captured data.
The warning applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.
Such TV sets "listen" to some of what is said in front of them and may share details they hear with Samsung or third parties, it said.
Privacy campaigners have compared the TVs to the telescreen monitoring devices in George Orwell's novel, 1984 and are describing Samsung's advice as "outrageous".
The warning came to light via a story in online news magazine the Daily Beast which published an excerpt of a section of Samsung's privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets.
The policy explains that the TV set will be listening to people in the same room to try to spot when commands or queries are issued via the remote. It goes on to say: "If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party."
Samsung said the privacy policy was an attempt to be transparent with owners in order to help them make informed choices about whether to use some features on its Smart TV sets, adding that it took consumer privacy "very seriously".
