These TV-makers are allegedly taking screenshots of what people watch, without consent

Lawmakers in Texas have sued five major TV manufacturers for capturing user data such as screenshots of what they are watching without their explicit consent.

Consent is a pretty important topic in the tech space, and even more so on shared devices such as smart TVs. We recently learned that Microsoft and LG are receiving a lot of backlash for forcefully installing the Copilot app on the latter's TV without user consent or the ability to uninstall. Now, it seems like multiple TV manufacturers are being sued for committing an even more egregious sin.

The Texas Attorney General (AG) has sued five major TV manufacturers, namely:

Sony
Samsung
LG
HiSense
TCL

The reason behind the lawsuit involves allegedly using Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology to capture what customers are currently watching. According to the filing, ACR is capable of taking screenshots after every 500 milliseconds (that's two screenshots every second!), understand what the user is watching in real-time, and more importantly, send this data back to the TV-makers without explicit consent from the end-user.

The lawmaker also emphasized the dangers of sending the data of U.S. customers back to Chinese servers belonging to HiSense and TCL. Both these firms follow China's National Security Law, which means that the government can gain access to their data - and U.S. customer data - at any point. Texas' Attorney General Ken Paxton highlighted his concerns, noting that:

Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans' devices inside their own homes.

This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries.

ACR is typically used by TV manufacturers to fingerprint their users so that they can tailor personalized content and ad experiences that they are more likely to watch. It is typically enabled by default on most modern smart TVs but can usually be disabled by the user in the device's privacy settings.

Neowin has reached out to the aforementioned TV manufacturers to find out their thoughts on the matter, we will update this article when and if they respond.