Privacy Claim for LG TVs from Gamers Nexus

A new video published by Gamers Nexus, a technology account with more than 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube, claimed that approximately 216 million LG televisions were constantly collecting data from users and feeding this data back to the company. Gamers Nexus also claimed that LG TVs can listen to users even when they are in standby mode or completely disconnected from the internet.

The account stated that this feature was possible thanks to the 'advertising functionality' feature integrated into the devices.

In the video shared by the account, which was watched nearly 4 million times in 3 days, it is shown that security vulnerabilities allow listening and recording sound from the internal microphones of televisions, and it is claimed that this situation can 'be used to turn televisions into secret listening devices'. The channel also stated that these security vulnerabilities were reported through the necessary channels.

According to Gamers Nexus' video, the majority of the issue that arises appears to be related to LG's Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology. This technology uses these listening features to learn what the user is watching, what app they are using, and what devices are connected to the television. These televisions also collect the user's IP address, geographic location, the names of local WiFi networks, and the IP addresses of other devices on the network.

In the video included in Gamers Nexus' research, a person who is stated to be a representative of the company said, "We know who is in the LG house, we know which devices are there."

LG DENIES THE CLAIMS

After these claims attracted widespread attention, an LG official said in a statement to the famous technology site Tom's Hardware: "The claims in the recently published video are not true. LG TVs process audio data only when the volume button on the remote control is pressed or when a wake-up word such as 'Hello LG' is recognized after the user activates the Far Field voice recognition feature."

LG said that contrary to the examples mentioned, "TVs do not collect or record ambient conversations." The company also stated that if the wake word is not recognized, no audio data is transmitted from the TV to the server and the audio processing for the wake word is done on the device.

The company acknowledged that smart TV functionality includes scanning for devices on the same network. But he said this is a standard function of all smart TVs and other smart home devices.

According to LG, automatic content recognition (ACR) is an optional feature that provides personalized content recommendations as well as services and advertisements, and as a standard, ACR data is not used for advertising purposes without consent.

LG addressed some of the claims in more detail, emphasizing that its smart TVs do not collect, record or transmit ambient conversation in the home unless the voice function is enabled by the user. He also stated that remote voice recognition technology (Hi LG) must be enabled by the user for the TV to start listening, similar to Apple's "Hey Siri" mechanism for the iPhone.