These TV-makers are allegedly taking screenshots of what people watch, without consent

Consent is a pretty important topic in the tech space, and even more so on shared devices such as smart TVs. We recently learned that Microsoft and LG are receiving a lot of backlash for forcefully installing the Copilot app on the latter's TV without user consent or the ability to uninstall. Now, it seems like multiple TV manufacturers are being sued for committing an even more egregious sin.

The Texas Attorney General (AG) has sued five major TV manufacturers, namely:

• Sony
• Samsung
• LG
• HiSense
• TCL

The reason behind the lawsuit involves allegedly using Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology to capture what customers are currently watching. According to the filing, ACR is capable of taking screenshots after every 500 milliseconds (that's two screenshots every second!), understand what the user is watching in real-time, and more importantly, send this data back to the TV-makers without explicit consent from the end-user.

https://www.neowin.net/news/these-tv-makers-are-allegedly-taking-screenshots-of-what-people-watch-without-consent/

From that article:

Quote

ACR is typically used by TV manufacturers to fingerprint their users so that they can tailor personalized content and ad experiences that they are more likely to watch. It is typically enabled by default on most modern smart TVs but can usually be disabled by the user in the device's privacy settings.