- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Earlier this week, Gamers Nexus, Level1Techs, and independent security researchers detailed some alarming findings about how LG’s TVs are logging and uploading data on its users. Now the company is pushing back against those allegations, saying that “Some recent media coverage may have contributed to misconceptions about how LG smart TVs work.”
LG released a statement in which it claims that its “TVs do not continuously record or transmit users’ conversations,” and that wake-word detection is all processed locally. However, the word “continuously” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here as Gamers Nexus demonstrated an LG TV keeping extensive logs of ambient conversations long after one would assume its AI assistant had stopped listening.
LG also said that its features like “Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), voice recognition, and interest-based advertising are optional,” and “not enabled by default.” The company says that:
ACR uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV’s internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV.
The company did not address broader concerns about how much data it collects, who it shares it with, the potential for bad actors to exploit its features, or the misleading way in which its privacy options are presented.
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LG owns the glass, the consumers, the router, and the air.
That… really didn’t help them at all
And apparently there are new avoiding litigation clauses in the ToU of updates being pushed this week.
I actually have a question about this: if I agree to a version of the ToS, later there is an update, and I do not agree with the changes, should not be the case I jeep using something out of date but also with a certain version of the ToS?
Asking in legal terms here, since companies like to put these changes as “accept or walk away” sort of situation, but I am almost sure this is actually either illegal or very close to that (and no, ToS, or a contract, is NOT above the law. So don’t even bother with that point)
That’s exactly why they are accept or walk away. You MUST agree to those terms to continue to use the device you bought. I’ve never heard of any laws on the consumer side of that practice.
Which is dumb because you could agree to the intial terms, and then they can change the agreement at any time and brick your tv if you leave it connected to the internet and they change the agreement to something ridiculous without an option to revert to the original agreement.
Yup, and your only option is to stop using it. No consumer protections whatsoever.
Not sure if you’re trying to say there are no litigation clauses or that there are “no litigation” clauses…
New litigation avoidance clauses mayhaps
In theory 23hr 59min 59sec of audio every day is not continuously recording.
Practically speaking, it’ll be a lot of false positive detections of the wake word + following audio. Which phones and other voice devices also suffer from. Even if the wake word happens locally, it’s fragile! Other words sound like it, enoguh to trigger it. Then audio gets sent to the cloud. Often with no notice to the user b/c they figure the wake word was on purpose.
