Samsung and other TV brands are getting sued in the US over data privacy fears

Samsung is getting sued once again in the US. Recently, it was related to patent infringement. This time, it is related to mass surveillance fears. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a case against Samsung and four other TV brands claiming that the TV makers have been collecting consumers' personal data through smart TVs.

In a press release, Texas Attorney General claims that Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, and TCL have been unlawfully collecting personal data through a technology called Automated Content Recognition (ACR). The lawsuits (one against each brand) allege that TVs from these five brands capture screenshots of what's on the screen every 500 milliseconds to monitor what TV viewers are watching in real time and then transmit that information to the company's servers or partners without a user's consent.

The lawsuit against Samsung claims “Most consumers do not know, nor have any reason to suspect, that Samsung Smart TVs are capturing in real-time the audio and visuals displayed on the screen and using the information to profile them for advertisers“

All five lawsuits, filed in district courts in various counties across the state of Texas, allege that the TV brands have violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and that consumer data collection for personalized recommendations and targeted advertising is not a legitimate purpose. The lawsuits are seeking damages of up to $10,000 for each violation for people aged below 65 and up to $250,000 for each violation affecting people that are aged 65 years or more.

The state of Texas is also seeking a prohibition on the collection, sharing, and selling of consumer data during the period of the lawsuit. It is also alleged that Hisense and TCL, which are based out of China, pose a serious threat to US consumer data, as the Chinese government can easily get its hands on that data.

It is alleged that opting out of content monitoring and disabling data collection on most TVs is unintuitive and sometimes needs more than 15 clicks. The lawsuit against Samsung claims that it is easy to opt into data monitoring, as it is baked into the TV setup process. However, users must navigate through various parts of the Settings menu to disable data tracking and personalisation. Users need to disable at least two settings:

Samsung reportedly denied commenting on this matter saying that it doesn't have anything to say about the ongoing lawsuit.