Samsung Warns Customers Not to Discuss Personal Information in Front of Smart TVs

Samsung Warns Customers Not to Discuss Personal Information in Front of Smart TVs:

February 23, 2017

In an unusual step, Samsung just warned its customers that their smart televisions may be impinging their privacy. 

Having confirmed that the smart TVs do, in fact, listen in on customers, the company is now warning customers not to speak about personal information while in front of their televisions.

Samsung noted that the voice activation feature on the smart televisions captures all nearby conversations – and that the TV sets can share that information with both Samsung and third-party services.

The news comes after Shane Harris at The Daily Beast pointed out a troubling line in Samsung’s privacy policy: “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.”

Samsung has now issued a new statement clarifying how the voice activation feature works.

“If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search,” Samsung said in a statement. “At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV.”

NOTE: Samsung has since  updated its policy and named the third party in question, Nuance Communications, Inc.

Source : Live The Organic Dream