{"id":7475,"date":"2015-02-13T11:30:47","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T16:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=7475"},"modified":"2020-02-26T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T16:00:00","slug":"you-watch-samsung-listens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/7475\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung Smart TV Listens While You Watch. Get Used to It."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago someone posted the following quote from Samsung\u2019s Smart TV terms of service on Reddit: \u201cPlease 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the days that followed, everyone from old media to new media to the official blog of Syracuse University posted their thoughts on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/the-smart-tv-that-watches-you\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">TV eavesdropping on your family<\/a>\u2018s every word. Unfortunately, until someone starts building <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/chrome_ext_encrypt_data_leaving_browser\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">privacy extensions<\/a> or plug-ins like \u201cDo Not Track\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/adblock-plus-for-safari-is-finally-available\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">AdBlock<\/a>\u201d for Smart TV operating systems, the only way to stop this sort of tracking is to disable voice recognition.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Samsung is doing a great job showing us how terrible smart TVs can be <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/lviEFqDB8G\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">http:\/\/t.co\/lviEFqDB8G<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Gizmodo\/status\/565549751727566848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">February 11, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Let me be the first to admit that I am not totally familiar with the inner workings of Samsung\u2019s past Google TV, present Samsung Smart TV or future Tizen operating systems, so I can\u2019t confirm that anti-tracking or other browser-like plug-ins are even a possibility.<\/p>\n<p>However, from everything I have read about their application development and vetting process, there is no explicit policy stopping anyone from building privacy add ons, yet there also aren\u2019t any prominent privacy plugins for any Smart TV systems, Samsung included.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pullquote\">If you think Samsung\u2019s is the only terms of service contract with that or a similar sentence buried in it, then I have bad news for you: it\u2019s not<\/div>\n<p>Perhaps more unfortunately, if you think Samsung\u2019s is the only terms of service contract with that or a similar sentence buried in it, then I have bad news for you: it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<p>Apple reserves the right to \u201cuse [customer] personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, and research to improve Apple\u2019s products, services, and customer communications\u201d across its product line. It permits itself to share this information with \u201cits affiliates\u201d as well (whoever they are).<\/p>\n<p>To their credit, Apple notes that Siri doesn\u2019t store information about your location outside your phone. However, it\u2019s not clear from their privacy policy nor their \u201cAbout\u201d Siri page whether they collect, store or share information spoken to Siri. We reached out to Apple with an inquiry about this. I do not expect to hear back.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-pullquote\"><p>#Samsung #SmartTV Voice Recognition picks up private conversations<\/p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fkas.pr%2F2BwD&amp;text=%23Samsung+%23SmartTV+Voice+Recognition+picks+up+private+conversations\" class=\"btn btn-twhite\" data-lang=\"en\" data-count=\"0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote>\n<p>Google admits that it collects information about the services you use, though it cleverly hides the specifics in pop-up windows, but that information includes: data usage and system preferences, Gmail messages (that\u2019s content, by the way), G+ profile information, photos, videos, browsing history, map searches, docs (again this is the content stored in your docs), or other Google-hosted content.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pullquote\">The only way to know for certain how a company handles your personal data is to read their privacy statements and terms of \u00a0service<\/div>\n<p>These are just a couple of many existing examples, and the only way to know for certain how a company handles your personal data is to read their privacy statements and terms of use or service. However, we all know that these documents are long, convoluted and riddled with complicated legal-speak. We all check the box saying that we have \u201cread and agree to the terms\u201d but almost\u00a0none of us actually do that.<\/p>\n<p>Among the few who actually do or would read terms, even less comprehend them. The argument about whether blindly checking a box actually constitutes consent, let alone informed consent, is a longstanding and valid one. For now, box-checking without reading is the norm, not matter how desperately you yearn for clear privacy statements and understandable terms.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/office-of-the-future\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">What the future holds is impossible to forecast<\/a> other than that there will be more connected devices, many of which will include more invasive and effective voice recognition. Google and Apple and Samsung and the other tech giants are ahead of curve here, if only slightly. These companies, whether you agree with them or not, are privacy-aware. They may be peddling your personal information to third parties, but at least they are thinking about it beforehand.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">With all the new data-collecting devices introduced at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CES2015?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">#CES2015<\/a>, how well will this data be protected? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bw158RiNGK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/bw158RiNGK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Kaspersky (@kaspersky) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kaspersky\/status\/555532389792120832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">January 15, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Just wait until all the many appliance manufactures that don\u2019t have a decade or more worth of privacy experience are incorporating voice recognition and activation services into their products. That\u2019s when things are going to get really interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Buried in Samsung\u2019s terms of service is the admission that spoken words are picked up and passed along to third parties by voice recognition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":7499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[794,43,914,457,660,508,889],"class_list":{"0":"post-7475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-iot","9":"tag-privacy","10":"tag-private-data","11":"tag-samsung","12":"tag-smart-home","13":"tag-smart-tv","14":"tag-voice-recognition"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/7475\/"},{"hreflang":"en-in","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/4615\/"},{"hreflang":"en-ae","url":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/4564\/"},{"hreflang":"en-us","url":"https:\/\/usa.kaspersky.com\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/5135\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/5448\/"},{"hreflang":"ru","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.ru\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/7070\/"},{"hreflang":"ja","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.co.jp\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/6870\/"},{"hreflang":"ru-kz","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.kz\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/7070\/"},{"hreflang":"en-au","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/7475\/"},{"hreflang":"en-za","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.za\/blog\/you-watch-samsung-listens\/7475\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/tag\/iot\/","name":"IoT"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7475"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33459,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7475\/revisions\/33459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}