Samsung Mired in Eavesdropping TV Controversy
By Lee Ji-hye
Samsung Electronics is mired in controversy over its 'eavesdropping' television sets, the BBC reported Monday.
As the devices include voice recognition features, the electronics company advises customers not to speak about personal information in front of their SmartTVs.
"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," the company said in an online statement.
Intellectual property lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Corynne McSherry, was quoted as saying that the third party mentioned in the statement was "probably the company providing speech-to-text conversion for Samsung."
"If I were the customer, I might like to know who that third party was, and I'd definitely like to know whether my words were being transmitted in a secure form," she said.
However, the statement explained that there are options to switch the voice-detecting functions off, though this has been questioned by many.
"You may disable Voice Recognition data collection at any time by visiting the “settings” menu," the company wrote. "However, this may prevent you from using all of the Voice Recognition features,"
Another activist for digital rights, Parker Higgins, took to Twitter to express concerns following the statement, comparing it to George Orwell's 'telescreens' in his novel 1984.
The novel's 'Telescreens' receive spoken content at homes, and transmit the information to the Thought Police, which maintain totalitarian control over individual opinions.
Samsung Electronics is mired in controversy over its 'eavesdropping' television sets, the BBC reported Monday.
As the devices include voice recognition features, the electronics company advises customers not to speak about personal information in front of their SmartTVs.
"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," the company said in an online statement.
Intellectual property lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Corynne McSherry, was quoted as saying that the third party mentioned in the statement was "probably the company providing speech-to-text conversion for Samsung."
"If I were the customer, I might like to know who that third party was, and I'd definitely like to know whether my words were being transmitted in a secure form," she said.
However, the statement explained that there are options to switch the voice-detecting functions off, though this has been questioned by many.
"You may disable Voice Recognition data collection at any time by visiting the “settings” menu," the company wrote. "However, this may prevent you from using all of the Voice Recognition features,"
Another activist for digital rights, Parker Higgins, took to Twitter to express concerns following the statement, comparing it to George Orwell's 'telescreens' in his novel 1984.
The novel's 'Telescreens' receive spoken content at homes, and transmit the information to the Thought Police, which maintain totalitarian control over individual opinions.
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