Samsung warns customers not to discuss personal information in front of smart TVs

["David Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Samsung warns customers not to discuss personal information in front of smart TVs
Date: February 16, 2017 at 7:20:15 AM EST
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com

Samsung warns customers not to discuss personal information in front of smart TVs
By Meghan De Maria
Feb 9 2017
<http://theweek.com/speedreads/538379/samsung-warns-customers-not-discuss-personal-information-front-smart-tvs 
<http://theweek.com/speedreads/538379/samsung-warns-customers-not-discuss-personal-information-front-smart-tvs>>

Samsung has confirmed that its "smart TV" sets are listening to customers' every word, and the company is warning 
customers <https://twitter.com/xor/status/564356757007261696/photo/1> not to speak about personal information while 
near the TV sets.

The company revealed that the voice activation feature on its smart TVs will capture all nearby conversations. The TV 
sets can share the information, including sensitive data, with Samsung as well as third-party services.

The news comes after Shane Harris at The Daily Beast pointed out 
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/05/your-samsung-smarttv-is-spying-on-you-basically.html> a troubling 
line in Samsung's privacy policy <https://www.samsung.com/uk/info/privacy-SmartTV.html?CID=AFL-hq-mul-0813-11000170>: 
"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."

Samsung has now issued a new statement <http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31296188> clarifying how the voice 
activation feature works. "If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a 
third party during a requested voice command search," Samsung said in a statement. "At that time, the voice data is 
sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV."

The company added that it does not retain or sell the voice data, but it didn't name the third party that translates 
users' speech.

Update, Feb. 10: Samsung has updated its policy 
<http://www.newsweek.com/samsung-updates-smarttv-policy-names-third-party-collecting-voice-commands-305935> and named 
the third party in question, Nuance Communications, Inc. Meghan DeMaria <http://theweek.com/authors/meghan-demaria>



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