[Click here for a NotebookLM audio discussion of this topic drawn from my source material.]

If you’ve been reading Bruceb News for a while, then you know that occasionally I’m compelled to tell you scary bedtime stories about why you don’t have any privacy and how everyone knows where you are all the time.

This is the creepiest one yet. You’re going to hate this. I’d recommend holding your hands up and squinching your eyes nearly closed and reading this article through the openings between your fingers.

My last article was about cheap TV streaming devices that you don’t own.

This one is about the TV that you have in your living room.

Your TV is spying on you. It is literally running surveillance technology.

Every movie and TV show you watch, every song you listen to, every game you play – your TV continuously monitors the screen, regardless of the source, and sends that information to the TV manufacturer. The manufacturer packages it with the other data it has about you and sells it to advertisers and data brokers.

You didn’t know that, did you? I didn’t either. It’s been going on for years. The data collection has been reported but I missed it. The New York Times and Consumer Reports just picked up on it a few weeks ago.

It’s so much worse than you think.

There’s a service running on your TV called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR). It takes samples of pixels on your screen very very frequently, anywhere from every two seconds to as often as every 10 milliseconds.

The fingerprints are sent to the manufacturer over the TV’s internet connection. They’re analyzed against a massive database of TV shows, movies, advertisements, games, and other media content to determine what you were watching.

It’s not just shows and movies. It does the same thing with audio if you’re listening with no picture onscreen; it figures out what game you’re playing through an attached Playstation; it even tracks what you say to the microphone in the remote.

Samsung TVs send a report every minute. LG TVs transmit data every 15 seconds. Sony, Sharp, TCL, Hisense, Philips, Panasonic, Pioneer, Toshiba, Roku – almost every manufacturer includes similar technology.

The viewing information is added to the manufacturer’s database of information about you. Then it’s sold into the huge data mining industry.

It might wind up with Amazon, Facebook (Meta), and Google, who run the largest advertising networks. Those companies link it with your activity on other devices for “omniscreen” advertising. You might be watching TV in the living room, then go into another room to work on your laptop and see ads related to the shows you were just watching.

But it’s also sold to data brokers, thousands in the US alone, who add it to the detailed profile they already have covering every aspect of who you are – age, race, gender, height, weight, marital status, religious affiliation, political affiliation, occupation, household income, net worth, home ownership status, investment habits, product preferences, health-related interests, and location. Those companies add the info about what you watched last night and resell it to advertisers, banks, life insurance companies, and government agencies. Here’s more info about the data broker industry.

You are a product. Some TV manufacturers make more from selling this data than they do from selling you the TV, which tells you a lot about the modern world of surveillance capitalism.

It’s impossible to buy a TV today that’s just a display. Every TV demands that you connect it to the internet during setup. The manufacturer claims the connection is required for the TV to be safe and get regular updates, and to run the built-in apps that will help you choose Netflix or Disney.

If you hook up an Apple TV+ or Google TV Streamer or Amazon Fire or Roku, you’re bypassing the TV’s built-in apps and using the TV as a dumb display. The apps are still there, you just don’t see them. Your TV is online unless you shut off its internet access.

Although it has been noticed before, the TV surveillance came up again recently after computer scientists at UC Davis, University College London, and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid published an in-depth analysis at the end of 2024. The research confirmed the behavior I’ve described and more. Theoretically ACR can be turned off by digging into the TV menus, but the authors are careful to note that it won’t be easy and might not be effective: “Opting out is typically not straightforward, often requiring navigation through various settings in multiple subsections, with no universal off switch. It is also unknown whether these privacy controls actually work as intended.”

I’ve been aware of how little privacy we have for years and I’m still shocked to discover this one. I’m comfortable letting Google know everything about me. I use a Google TV streamer and I’m at peace with letting Google track what I watch.

But there’s something about the idea that Samsung keeps track of every time we watch Temptation Island and it sells that info to advertisers – this is way off the creepy scale.

Option 1: If you use a separate streaming device, turn off the TV internet connection. Look at your remote. If it’s controlling a separate device next to the TV – Apple TV+ or Google TV Streamer or Amazon Fire Stick or Roku – then the separate device has its own internet connection.

In that case you’re using the TV as a dumb display. It doesn’t need to be online for anything.

I use a Google TV Streamer. I shut off the wifi connection on my Samsung TV immediately after setting up the TV. You might want to do the same thing if you use another streaming device to run your TV.

Every brand of TV will be different but the option to disable the internet connection is usually under Settings / Network or some variation on that. Remember, that’s the menu for the TV, the one that comes up from the remote supplied by the TV manufacturer. It’s not the menu for the Google TV or Apple TV+ or whatever.

Option 2: Turn off ACR.  The setting to turn off ACR is buried and may use different words – “Smart TV Experience,” “Viewing Information Experiences,” “Live Plus,” and many other varieties of gibberish designed to keep you from protecting your privacy rights. This is the best article I found about where to find the setting on different brands of TVs. Sorry, there’s no single easy answer. Pro tip: ask Perplexity or Google Gemini for instructions for your specific TV model.

Option 3: Ignore it.  Stick your fingers in your ears and say “LA LA LA” and let it go.

You don’t have any privacy. Your every move is tracked, every click is stored, every decision you make is analyzed and stored in a huge profile and sold.

Is this so different? The TV manufacturer is adding to the flow of data so you get personalized ads. They might not be well chosen but at least the advertisers are trying, however ineptly. If you’re living a good life and have relatively few secrets, there’s not much extra harm from letting another big company know what you watch at home.

I know. Yuck.

Sorry to have brought it up. I’m only the messenger. Don’t unsubscribe just because I’m Debbie Downer occasionally. I promise, I won’t do any more creepy articles. For a while.