The major South Korean tech firm released a new line of ultra-high definition (SUHD) TVs that use their own operating system, called Tizen. Among the many features of the new TV is “the ability to control and interact with your SmartTV with gestures and voice commands.”
It’s the voice recognition feature that is alarming privacy advocates.
In a policy that informs users how the company will “collect, use, share, and store information” gathered by the device, Samsung warns its customers to watch what they say around the TV.
“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 through your use of Voice Recognition,” the policy reads.
The policy says that information is sometimes transmitted to a third party in order to convert speech to text or to provide voice recognition features.
There is no information in the privacy policy about how much of what a user says might be collected, how specifically it is handled or how long it is stored, either by the company itself or its third party services.
An eavesdropping TV is startling in itself, but Samsung has said they want to expand use of the Tizen operating system to all sorts of household items, like washing machines and refrigerators. The company has already launched a “smart home” system with which to link all a home’s smart appliances together, and which also uses voice commands.
The new TVs range in price from $5000-$7250 and come in 55-, 65-, 78-, and 88-inch models.
