Source: Tony Cordoza / Getty
Smart technology is innovative and exciting, but a new announcement from Samsung about its “Smart TVs” is just plain creepy.
According to UPI,
Samsung says the voice activation feature on its smart TVs follows voice commands or questions, but can also listen in on any conversation you have near the set, include sensitive data. The smart tv’s owners manual cautions, “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.” People are obviously concerned, but Samsung says it does not retain or sell the information it gets and revealed the third party is Nuance, a company specializing in voice recognition. The company also says that TV owners will know if the voice activation feature is on because a microphone icon appears on the screen. It’s not the first time something like this has happened– back in 2013, LC had to update its software to ensure the data its TVs collected about owners viewing habits could be turned off if owners wanted.
I don’t know how I feel about this. I’m in the market for a new TV and I’ve been wanting a Samsung Smart TV. Oh boy.
