LG's denial confirms the part that applies to every smart TV - The Next Web

The LG Electronics logo at a store in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

A Gamers Nexus investigation says LG smart TVs scan local networks, record standby audio and use content recognition across inputs, feeding data to LG Ad Solutions. LG says the claims are not true, while confirming that its televisions scan local networks and calling that standard across the industry. Content recognition is near-universal among smart TV makers and already behaves differently by country.

A Gamers Nexus investigation says LG smart TVs log and upload data about owners and their homes, including while offline or on standby. The video was published on Sunday, made with Level1Techs and independent security researchers using retail LG OLEDs.

Packet captures showed the sets scanning the local network for nearby hardware such as phones and smartwatches, and logging location data and nearby Wi-Fi networks. Dominic Preston set out the findings for The Verge, which reports that the data went back to LG Ad Solutions.

LG rejects the central allegations. The claims in the video are not true, the company told The Register.

It has denied constant logging and uploading, and denied recording audio in standby. Those are the findings that would be most serious if established.

It has not addressed everything. LG has not publicly responded to the claim that voice commands are stored unencrypted.

Here is the part worth slowing down for. LG has confirmed that its televisions scan local networks for other devices, and says this is standard behaviour across modern smart TVs.

That is a denial of uniqueness rather than a denial of the behaviour. Read plainly, the company is saying the scanning is real and everyone does it.

LG also says content arriving over HDMI is only analysed when a user has enabled personalised ads or recommendations. That places the practice behind a setting rather than outside the product.

Automatic content recognition is not an LG invention. RTINGS published its own video on how ACR is used by almost every smart TV maker to work out what you are watching.

So the contested findings concern one manufacturer. The admitted ones describe a category.

Television sets are advertising businesses now. TNW noted the direction years ago, when Gracenote signed a deal to power LG smart TV interfaces across Europe and ad replacement began arriving on living room screens.

ACR behaviour already varies by jurisdiction. Reporting on smart TV tracking has found some services excluded from recognition in the UK, which points to legal caution rather than technical limits.

That matters more than it sounds. If a manufacturer can switch recognition off in one market, the behaviour is a policy choice everywhere else.

GDPR and the ePrivacy rules require consent for this category of processing. Whether the consent flow on a European LG set meets that standard is an answerable question, and nobody appears to have asked it publicly.

Brussels has shown it will pursue interface and design choices rather than only data breaches. The Commission went after Meta over addictive design aimed at children.

The same logic applies to a default that enables content recognition. Regulators across several countries have converged on design rules as the enforceable route.

A television that scans your network is a design decision with a settings screen attached. That is exactly the territory European enforcement has been moving into.

Covert device inventory is not confined to televisions. LinkedIn was found probing browsers for thousands of extensions and dozens of hardware characteristics.

The pattern is consistent. A product collects more than its function requires, the collection serves advertising, and the disclosure sits in a settings menu nobody opens.

Hardware answers exist. A physical kill switch that cuts the microphone is the version of privacy that does not depend on trusting a toggle.

The standby recording claim is testable. It is a binary question about whether a microphone is live when a screen is off, and independent researchers can answer it on retail hardware.

TNW has not verified the findings and has not tested any set. The competing accounts are both public, and LG has denied the most serious parts on the record.

The unglamorous mitigation still works. A television that is never connected to a network cannot upload anything, which is a poor answer for a product sold on its apps.

Technology enthusiast and intern at The Next Web, contributing to research-backed content and investigating new technologies and global even (show all) Technology enthusiast and intern at The Next Web, contributing to research-backed content and investigating new technologies and global events. Interested in business and how the narrative and perception of technology is shaped.

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