In China, the Smart TV watches you, shares IP address, Wi-Fi SSIDs, viewing habits, and more
- Reference: 1620104106
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/04/skyworth_gozen_smart_tv_privacy/
- Source link:
A [1]statement from the company explains that some of its tellies sent information about owners’ viewing habits to a company called “Gozen Data”. But Skyworth accused Gozen of slurping more data and has terminated its relationship and demanded deletion of out-of-scope data.
The tellie-maker was alerted to the data slurping by a [2]post to Chinese creative tech forum V2EX, on which a user investigated apps running on his TV and found one that he alleged scans the local network and transmitted details of hostname, MAC address, IP address, latency, plus nearby Wi-Fi networks’ SSIDs, to gz-data.com.
[3]
[4]
Gz-Data.com is operated by Gozen Data, and the company represents itself as “The leader in smart decision making for connected TVs”. Among the services Gozen offers is collection of data for audience ratings services based on activity including use of streaming video platforms, “Integration of traditional TV and digital media measurement”
Samsung reminds rabble to scan smart TVs for viruses – then tries to make them forget [5]READ MORE
Skyworth does not deny that Gozen had a presence on its tellies, but says it has disabled the app.
“Moving forward, we will implement more stringent reviews on the conduct of our partners and service providers to safeguard our users’ privacy, data, rights, and interests,” Skyworth promises. ®
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[1] https://www.skyworth.net/global/news-list/news12.html
[2] https://www.v2ex.com/t/772523
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YJEbPBmlaROTI@lbIm7HbAAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJEbPBmlaROTI@lbIm7HbAAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/18/samsung_smart_tv_malware/
[6] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The smart TV watches you wherever you are in the world
LG [1]was caught snooping on LAN shares .
Vizio [2]sent unencrypted analytics data and frame captures without explaining what use it was going to be put to.
Some models of Samsung TVs may have an always-on camera and microphone, others may make you press a button on the remote before recording from the microphone but [3]all sent microphone recordings to a third party , [4]sent unencrypted data , [5]and have non-existent security .
ACR [6]identifies what you're watching and when whatever the source .
The best you're going to get are weasel words privacy settings which allegedly give you options which anonymise your data or turn off tracking, but they're still going to slurp.
Best not to plug the damn thing into the Internet.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2013/11/20/lg_smart_tv_data_collection/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2017/02/06/ftc_spanks_vizio_for_slurping_viewer_activity/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2015/02/09/samsung_listens_in_to_everything_you_say_to_your_smart_tv/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2015/02/17/samsung_smart_tv_privacy_rewind/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2012/12/19/samsung_smart_tv_security_fix/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/30/samsung_smart_tv_ads/
Re: The smart TV watches you wherever you are in the world
Best not to plug the damn thing into the Internet.
Precisely.
It's a TV . I don't use streaming services (the broadband out here would have to buffer probably overnight).
My sky box nags asks me to connect to a router when it is powered on and I never do. It has been connected to a phone line once and only once at initial setup as that is a required step.
It can scan all it wants but as I physically turn my router off when I don't need it, it will be nicely contained within the confines of my home. As my nearest neighbour is about 400 yards away their router sometimes shows up on the list but not very often.
I recently got a new TV which has dozens of apps that splash on the screen at startup, which gets quickly turned off.
To TV manufacturers: If I wanted an internet connected data slurper, I would buy one. Stick to rendering the image.
Re: The smart TV watches you wherever you are in the world
> Best not to plug the damn thing into the Internet.
I wish it was that easy, but IIRC Samsung got a patent for building a mesh using their TVs to provide upload capabilities even if that particular TV was never plugged in the net. Yep, you pretty much need to either get a dumb TV (which is getting more and more impossible) or jailbreak it and disable most stuff on it.
Re: The smart TV watches you wherever you are in the world
It's good of Samsung to patent it, that just means you don't need to buy a Samsung.
I'm mildly surprised...
...the snooping allegedly wasn't at the request of the CCP...
In China only?
I doubt it.
Insidious Creep or "Slurpee"
This issue is just going to get worse because ultimately it is all about money. Money for all the companies in the food chain that can make money by selling data gathered from individuals. There is no regulation other than vague statements about how your data is used, stored kept and shared. What is really bad and needs stamping on (but it won't happen) with an iron fist is the need to sign up to to something just to turn the sodding TV, gadget or whatever on.
That it is now seen as completely acceptable to have microphones and cameras doing nothing more than spy is total shite. What the hell is wrong with a remote control? It uses Infra Red and and just works. Why this obsession with voice control of everything other than the minor detail that it means everything has an active microphone and has to connected to the Internet to work?
Who owns what?
I'm confused (or is that Confucius?). A quick search on the Interwebs brings up the following:-
Gozen Data is funded by 2 investors. Huan.tv and Skyworth are the most recent investors.
Is that the same Skyworth that was allegedly unaware what was going on? Only in China...
So, China is now playing catch up with
the UK?