Samsung issued this updated uh warning or whatever you want to call it on their products that that this may be happening. Sort of an ominously worded document, right? It was a little ominous. It it said, you know, be careful about what you say in front of the television. Try not to have any sensitive conversations in your living room because the TV is going to be recording what you say. If you just bought a smart TV, the FBI is also issuing a warning over those devices. So, what this means is I could be sitting here watching TV from my from my bedroom and you could be anywhere in the world looking at this image of me watching. Yep. You've done everything right. Strong passwords, privacy settings, even tape over your webcam. You're careful with your phone and laptop. But there's one device you probably never worried about. The smart TV sitting quietly in your living room. It plays your favorite shows, responds to your voice, and looks harmless. But behind that screen, it might be watching your back. In 2019, the FBI warned that smart TVs can be hijacked by hackers and even used to spy through built-in cameras and microphones. So, if the threat is sitting right there in your home, the question is, how much of your life is being seen and sold without you knowing it? Really scary stuff when it comes to these smart TVs. Yeah. Uh, I don't know about you, Vlad. The last time I bought a phone that was a nons smartphone was a long time ago. Same thing with your television. And just like we have to lock our phones down and our home computers down, now we have to lock down all of the smart devices in our living rooms, including our televisions. But while your attention is on the screen, your smart TV is doing more than just showing you content. It's quietly taking notes, snapping images of what's being displayed. Not a couple here and there, up to 30 full frames every minute, even if you haven't touched the remote. According to US patent 10,951,698B1 filed by Inscape data services. This isn't a hidden bug or random glitch. It's built into the system, part of a process called real-time visual sampling. Even when your TV appears to be in standby mode, it's still scanning what's on the screen and collecting that data. They call it smart interactivity. Sounds helpful, but not really for you. So, what this means is I could be sitting here watching TV from my from my bedroom and you could be anywhere in the world looking at this image of me watching. Yep. I could be sitting on a laptop in a cafe in Paris and as long as I have a network connection, I'd be able to get into your TV and access the camera. The kind of scary things about it is that it doesn't actually give any indication that the camera's on. Um, and there is no little LED that shows up when the camera's on. So, it could actually be watching you and you never even know. Do you know that we all have a secret digital profile collected by our two smart smart TVs? So, how exactly does our TV know so much about us? It all comes down to something called ACR, or automatic content recognition. This technology is built right into many smart TVs, and it's far more powerful than most people realize. ACR works by not only taking screenshots, but also listening to the audio coming from your screen. Then it compares that content to a massive database of shows, ads, and scenes to figure out exactly what you're watching and when. It's not just about knowing the channel or app. You're being tracked down to the second. There are also reports that smart TVs themselves are watching what you do and reporting the data back to the company that is that that made the devices. So, what kind of information are they using? Well, just think about your phone and all of the important information that's available on your phone created by applications. So on your smart TV, there might be Netflix, there might be uh YouTube and all of these applications, just like the apps on your phone, they talk to not just the device maker back home, uh but they talk to each other and they send information between each other. So, uh, much of the that information is just as vulnerable as anything on your phone. And if it has a your TV has a weak or non-existent password, all of that information is accessible by cyber attackers. According to Dr. Peter Snider's 2021 research at Brave, ACR doesn't just collect what you stream online. It can also grab data from what you watch through HDMI, like DVDs or game consoles. So, even if you're playing an offline video game or watching an old disc, your TV still knows what's going on and logs the details. A 2018 report from UC Berkeley titled Watching You Watch confirmed that ACR was present in millions of TVs from brands like Vizio, Samsung, and LG. What's worse is that these hidden features are often turned on by default with opt-out settings hidden behind vague or misleading menu options. You thought you brought home a television to watch content, but what you really brought home was a two-way system, one that watches you back constantly and builds a detailed profile of your habits, preferences, and routines, even your banking credentials. It does it without ever needing your permission, conceivably. What could they be using this data for? Well, for the same data, uh the same reason you might want to siphon information off of your phone. That's pretty useful not just to hackers, but to big data companies. However, what's really interesting is this new practice called cookie syncing. That is when I have a cookie that's a little piece of data on my computer or my phone that identifies my browser and what I'm doing uh on that phone or with the applications. I can then sign into accounts. Those accounts I'm also signed into on my television. And it lets me or it lets device maker sync the information between uh my TV, my phone, and my computer. So you can have a pretty good idea of who someone is and their habits. But the real danger is um when people start using smart TVs for things like online banking, we can take a popular bank address and translate that into um a different IP address to a site that that directs to a site that we control. So it may look like your bank's login, but you're actually entering a username and password that goes to us instead of your bank. Once your smart TV collects all that data, it doesn't just sit there. It travels. That information gets sent off, packaged into a neat little profile with your habits, interests, and behaviors, and enters a marketplace most people don't even know exists. That marketplace got me thinking. How much of my own life is on sale? So, here's a quick test before we go on. Grab your phone or laptop and Google your email address. See all those broker sites popping up? It felt like someone was rifling through my private life and slapping price tags on it. That's exactly why we partnered with Aura. This segment is a paid promotion with them. Aura quietly scrubs your details from hundreds of those data broker sites and locks down all your personal devices. I run it on my phone and laptop where my banking apps and passwords live. And it alerts me instantly if anything pops up on the dark web, flags suspicious activity before it becomes a headache, and even backs me with up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, plus a built-in VPN, antivirus, and password manager. It all happens behind the scenes, so I can get back to worrying about everything except whether someone's selling my data. Try it for free for 14 days. Go to orura.com/videadvice. No hoops, just real protection. Think about it. Every time you stream on your smart TV, you're on the same Wi-Fi your phone and laptop use. Without extra safeguards, a hacker who slips in through your TV could snoop on your banking apps and personal messages. But with Aura installed in your devices, any data sent from them is wrapped in a secure VPN tunnel. So even if someone's poking around your network, they can't read your sensitive traffic. And because Aura manages removal requests at hundreds of broker sites and constantly watches the dark web for your personal info, you're far less exposed in that data marketplace we just uncovered. It's like having both a privacy shield on your data and a security alarm on your devices. Because according to a 2023 joint study by University College London and UC Davis, smart TVs are constantly logging your personal information and feeding them into the global ad economy for data brokers and advertising networks eagerly buy it up. That data then sits there and it sits there for another company to use um perhaps through advertising. There's an advertising component to all of this. um it sits there to be hacked at some point later on in the future and it sits there for the the government to access it should uh they decide to do that. That same study estimated that your viewing profile can sell for anywhere from $5 to $15 depending on how detailed and targetable it is. The study also found that children's viewing data is especially valuable because advertisers use it for something called early behavioral modeling. Basically, by studying what kids watch now, they try to predict and influence how they'll behave in the future. That kind of data can drive ad prices up by as much as 30%. A 2022 report from the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, showed that 70% of people had no idea this was happening at all. No clue their movie nights were turning into marketable data. With a smart TV, you're not just a viewer anymore. You've become a product quietly sold to the highest bidder every time you hit play. For years, smart TV companies quietly collected data while no one was really paying attention. But in 2017, things started to unravel. That year, the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, filed a complaint against Vizio, one of the biggest smart TV manufacturers in the US. The FTC revealed that 11 million Vizio TVs had been collecting detailed viewing data down to what shows were watched and when and selling it to third parties. What made it worse? They did it without ever getting clear consent from users. In the end, Vizio settled the case, agreeing to pay $2.2 million and delete all the data they had just gathered. This made headlines for exposing just how far this kind of surveillance had already gone. The FTC and the New Jersey Attorney General's Office reached an understanding with Vizio. The TV manufacturer is going to pay $2.2 million in a settlement after the FTC found the TV manufacturer had used 11 million of its TV sets to spy on the owners of those sets. But that wasn't the end of it. In 2020, things got heated again with a multi-dist class action against LG, Samsung, and Sony. Plaintiffs argued that these companies were violating the Video Privacy Protection Act as well as various state level consumer privacy laws. People were just upset about being watched. They demanded compensation. The lawsuit claimed that each affected person should be paid $100 for every day their privacy was violated with a maximum payout of $10,000 per person. Meanwhile, overseas, regulars also started digging. In 2023, the European Data Protection Board or EDPB launched investigations into firmware updates by Samsung and LG that were silently resetting privacy settings, turning tracking features back on after users had opted out. All of this caught the attention of digital rights advocates. Jeff Chester, director of the Center of Digital Democracy, testified before Congress in 2020. He called smart TV tracking the most invasive, invisible form of commercial surveillance today. And honestly, it's hard to disagree with that. Now, you think after government investigations and multi-million dollar fines, these companies would back off, but the truth is the tracking never really stopped. Your TV keeps working silently in your living room. Marketers are more committed to developing data analysis skills in coming years than social media skills. Turning off tracking on your smart TV might feel like you're taking control, but it's not as solid as it seems. The truth is, most opt- out settings aren't really built to protect you. They're built to look like they are. A 2022 study published in the journal Technology and Privacy found that just getting to the privacy settings usually takes 8 to 10 clicks buried deep inside menus that most people never even explore. And even if you manage to find and switch everything off, the protection might only be temporary. According to the 2023 privacy reset study by University College London, around 60% of major smart TV brands silently turn tracking features back on after firmware updates. No pop-ups or prompts. It just quietly resets in the background. Well, what's going on when you're talking to the television is that it's capturing your voice and translating it into text uh through a third party through another company and then trying to send the control back to the television. The problem is that when you have that sort of software and the microphone on all the time, it's collecting a lot of information about what you might say in the privacy of your own living room. TV makers defend this behavior with legal loopholes. They often redefine personal data in their terms of service, conveniently excluding things like your viewing history or HDMI input metadata. That means they can keep logging what you watch even after you've opted out and still claim they're respecting your privacy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF calls this practice consent washing, a legal trick to give you the illusion of choice while quietly ignoring it. So, when you click off, your TV might still be tracking, analyzing, and sharing your behavior like nothing ever changed. Even if you somehow have managed to block tracking on your smart TV, the moment you open Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, the data collection kicks back in. These services build full behavioral profiles, and they start doing it the second you log in. Netflix, for example, gives you the option to hide your viewing history, but it doesn't delete anything. According to their 2022 transparency report, the information stays on their servers, helping power the recommendation engine and targeted ads. In a statement to CNN Money, Samsung says it takes consumer privacy very seriously. The camera can be turned into the bezel of the TV so that the lens is covered or disabled by pushing the camera inside the bezel. The TV owner can also unplug the TV from the home network when the smart TV features are not in use. As an added precaution, we also recommend that customers use encrypted wireless access points when using connected devices. Amazon Prime Video has a setting to turn off interest based ads, which sounds promising, but in reality, all it does is stop the ads from being tailored to your behavior. It doesn't stop Amazon from collecting the data in the first place. Hulu 2 technically gives users control, but the full privacy settings are tucked away under California privacy rights, a section most users will never even click. And then there's a bigger problem. Cookie syncing and account linking. A 2021 audit by Northeastern University found that major streaming platforms sync your user ID across devices, your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. So even if you delete your history in one place, another device might still hand it back over. Most people think the worst thing their smart TV can do is show them weird ads. But the truth is a lot more serious. These TVs can actually open the door to real security risks. According to a 2020 report by Checkpoint Research, many smart TVs ship with weak factory default credentials like admin or 0000. That means anyone who knows your brand, and most hackers do, can break in remotely with hardly any effort. Models with voice control and gesture features often come in with built-in microphones and hidden cameras. You might not even realize it, but if those sensors aren't secured, they can be activated without your knowledge. A 2022 study by Carnegie Melon University warned about unauthorized sensor access caused by unpatched or poorly designed firmware. They are trying to tell us that our smart TV could be a back door into our home. Samsung issued this updated uh warning or whatever you want to call it um on their products that that this may be happening. Sort of an ominously worded document, right? It was a little ominous. It it said, you know, be careful about what you say in front of the television. Try not to have any sensitive conversations in your living room because the TV is going to be recording what you say and sending that data off to another company. And once inside, it doesn't stop at the TV. Hackers have used smart TVs as an entry point to tap into home Wi-Fi networks, then move on to more sensitive devices like smartphone, your laptop, or even baby monitors. That's why even people like Mark Zuckerberg and former Google engineers physically cover their cameras and mics. It's not an overreaction. It's basic protection. Now, you might be thinking, is there any way to take back control? You can't control what manufacturers hide in their terms of service, but you can make it harder for them to snoop on you. Start by doing a factory reset on your smart TV. Yes, it's annoying to relog into everything, but this time pay attention during the setup. Read the prompts. Don't just click agree on everything. Look up how to disable ACR in your specific TV model. For example, Samsung calls it viewing information services, while Vizio uses the term smart interactivity. These features are often turned on by default. Then go physical. If your TV has a camera or mic, cover it with tape or a camera slider. It's a low tech move, but it's effective. And if you don't use streaming apps on your TV, consider disconnecting it from Wi-Fi altogether. No internet means no tracking. You may not be able to shut down every single data stream, but you can take enough steps to stop being an easy target, and finally take back some control, if not all of it. Or you can let Aura handle it all for you behind the scenes, protecting your devices and data automatically. You can try Aura free for 14 days. Link in the description below. So, what are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments below.