Beware if you are one of those proud owners of Samsung SmartTV. Why you might wonder? The reason is that this smart TV has a latent threat which most buyers do not know of. The device comes equipped with voice recognition feature, allowing you to say a command at your TV which the TV follows. This may sound exciting but consider the fact that your TV is constantly listening for commands and records everything you say.
However, Samsung SmartTV has clearly mentioned this underlying threat in their privacy policy which users often choose to ignore. The privacy policy warns users against discussing personal information in front of the TV while the Voice Recognition feature is enabled. The TV may collect the information assuming it to be a command, and capture the data and transmit it to a third party.
The Voice Recognition feature enables a microphone to appear on the TV screen after which the user can give a command. However, there is an option to opt out of the voice command feature but this will refrain the user from enjoying voice command feature all together.
To avoid creating a stir over this, Samsung said in a statement on Shareably that it does not retain voice data or sell it to third parties. If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV.
However, the cliché ‘precaution is better than cure’ falls apt here, leaving it to the users to not divulge any private information to the TV!
Originally published on khaleejtimes.com