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TV maker: Don't discuss personal info in front of screen

Warns other people may actually be listening

By WND Staff
Published February 8, 2015 at 3:32pm

Your SmartTV just might be smarter than you think.

Did you know someone might be listening on the other end of your TV?

Would you have guessed that many someones are indeed listening if you are using a voice-recognition SmartTV?

Convenience may come at the expense of privacy and security in the expanding world of interconnected devices and voice control recognition, cautions Samsung, which issues this warning on its 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."

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But how many are reading the fine print?

More such products are coming online every day – like Amazon's connected speaker with a Siri-style assistant that can perform a variety of tasks including adding items to your e-commerce shopping basket.

"The potential privacy intrusion of voice-activated services is massive," reports TechCrunch.com.

Electronic privacy activists are apoplectic about what’s already here and what's on the horizon – comparing it to George Orwell's Big Brother world of "1984."

Where does this all lead?

The TechCrunch report concludes with this question: "When all the objects in your home have networked ears that are fine-tuned for commercial intelligence gathering, where will you go to talk about 'personal' or 'sensitive' stuff?"