Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed separate lawsuits against five major TV manufacturers – Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL – alleging they secretly record consumers’ viewing habits in their own homes.
The lawsuits claim that these TVs form a “mass surveillance system” by employing Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology to collect personal data for targeted advertising. ACR analyzes visual and audio data to identify content from various sources, including streaming services, cable TV, YouTube videos, and Blu-ray discs.
Paxton alleges that ACR also captures streams from security and doorbell cameras, media transmitted via Apple AirPlay or Google Cast, and displays from devices connected to the TV’s HDMI ports, such as laptops and game consoles. The suits accuse the companies of “deceptively” prompting users to activate ACR, with disclosures that are “hidden, vague, and misleading.” Specifically, Samsung and Hisense capture screenshots of the TV display every 500 milliseconds, according to the complaints.
The manufacturers allegedly send this viewing data back to their own servers “without the user’s knowledge or consent,” enabling them to sell it for targeted advertising. Paxton raises additional concerns about TCL and Hisense, both based in China, describing their TVs as “Chinese-sponsored surveillance devices, recording the viewing habits of Texans at every turn.”
The lawsuits charge that Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL violate Texas state laws.
