Is your smart TV watching you?

While I do not have a smart TV this is something I do now.

I do some work for a market research company and when I watch things via ITVPlayer / BBCIPlayer and DVD’s via VLCPlayer my webcam is turned on and the company is tracking what parts of the screen I watch.

It started off last year with ITVPlayer due to the adverts. But it’s grown & pretty much works on everything I stream now.

Some people will find this very uneasy and I do not agree with Smart TVs doing this. But as I get paid for it I am happy to help companies out.

Since roadside advertising has virtually disappeared, TV commercials are avoided through the use of PVR’s, and shopping is done on-line nowadays, attracting our attention and influencing our purchasing intentions has become increasingly difficult. Newspapers and magazines are still heavily dependent on advertising but it is very easy to ignore it so commercial organisations are on the look-out for any alternatives. I find it annoying that on-line browsing is increasingly affected by targetted advertising picking up on products I have looked at elsewhere; I have to accept that is the price I have to pay to read an on-line version of a newspaper because I am no longer buying a paper copy. However, I draw the line at targetted and personally aimed advertising being channelled into our living room through a TV set with no neutral way of preventing it. If we have friends round, or staying with us, and spend some time watching a film, are we to have a resumé of our recent spending aspirations presented to us on-screen for perusal and an inevitable conversation topic? I am surprised that Terms & Conditions that enable this without a no-penalty opt-out facility are not substantively classified as inherently unfair.

By connecting my laptop to the ‘ordinary’ television I have most of the smart features of the expensive set. So far, my surfing habits have not generated any (obvious) targeted advertisments. I would take exception to a television that did this to me and I hope enough people would do the same to influence the manufacturers and content providers to back off. If the televisions did not sell, this intrusion would be seen as counter-productive. Of course, if people were unaware of this until after the purchase of a smart set, there should be some way of legally protesting. Not only would they be cross at the intrusion, but they would be angry at the loss of facilities, if these were conditional on targeted ads. If the shop (in what ever form) did not make these terms and conditions clear to their customers, they could also be taken to task for negligence. In this uncertain world companies seem to get away with a great deal while insisting that it is all for our benefit. I wonder how long it will be before society catches up and calls time on such activities?

The latest “smart” device in the US actually takes a voice print so it knows it is you ! This is stored with your address and cards etc by Amazon.

Whether the EU will have any effects on these TV’s etc remains to be seen. The UK is seen to be very much the uncaring nation in the EU on digital freedoms. Possibly because Europeans have long memories on police states unlike the UK or US.

How hypocritical of Which? to criticize 3rd party internet services for tracking their customers. Why don’t Which? practice what they preach and stop tracking people visiting the Which webpages.

Which have a poor record when it comes to standing up for consumer privacy issues – how many times have Which? mentioned Snowden? and the can of worms he revealed.

Get a Grip

Technology just keeps getting better but also scarier

Internet is mostly full of trollups trolling keyboard warriors cowardly humiliating other’s

Reasons to be cheerful are CRT.
Having read the article ‘The spy in your tv’ I decided to stick to my old CRT until such time as the spy can be disabled without loss of function.
There never used to be T&C’s for a tv set and we don’t expect them any more than we do for any other household item. The manufacturers seem to have forgotten that we are the customers and we have the money, we do them a favour in choosing their brand so if any T&C’s are to be set it should be by us. My only T&C is that I don’t want any T&C’s for my TV. Nor do I want to be spied on, have targeted adds or my previous viewing history revealed.
Which ? please keep pushing manufacturers to change their tracking policies etc. because until they do I wont be going smart even though I would love to buy a new tv in 2015

Four months on from the original article. I wonder what if anything has changed.

Yes I wont be buying a smart TV or for that matter a smart electric/gas meter which checks out your house usage of all devices connected to the electric system for use by commercial firms to target you.. Your iphone has a backdoor to the GCHQ they admitted it.And Stingray a receiving unit for cell-net reception lining the streets of the US cities the device used by the FBI for “terrorists” is being used to listen to human rights workers in the US, one has been charged on its evidence. Or how about the licence detectors used in the US to record your actions in your car and focused on the driver not the licence plate again not denied. Nothing is secret anymore for the 99%