Bound To Happen

It was bound to happen sooner or later. That’s my view when it was reported that Samsung's Smart TV could be listening and sharing info of people viewing the Smart TV.

Basically, Samsung's Smart TV uses voice recognition technology and as the TVs are connected to the internet, the TVs are able to capture and transmit nearby conversations to others…without the knowledge of the people watching the TV. It’s even in the fine print of Samsung's privacy policy for smart TVs!

Voice recognition technology in Samsung's Internet-connected TVs captures and transmits nearby conversations. The policy warns, "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 through your use of Voice Recognition."

In a move against the growing backlash, Samsung said that the technology can be activated or deactivated by pressing a button on the TV remote and the technology is very similar to how voice assistants work on smartphones. They also say there's no threat of eavesdropping if the feature isn't activated.

Good and well but the problems I see is that a) the voice recognition is on by default and…well, b) who the hell ever read the privacy policy? Samsung clearly put this tech in to get info on their customers and doing it without their consent but guess what; it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Government has been using technology to track citizens’ activities for ages so it’s no surprise to me that multi-national companies with money to burn are going to do the same. It was always bound to happen.