The Texas Attorney General sued five companies, claiming that Sony and LG TVs were spying on the company, and that a system existed to capture and collect images of TV screens twice per second.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against five companies - Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL - alleging that they have 'secretly collected personal data of Texas citizens.'
Attorney General Paxton Sues Five Major TV Companies, Including Some with Ties to the CCP, for Spying on Texans | Office of the Attorney General
Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/news/845400/texas-tv-makers-lawsuit-samsung-sony-lg-hisense-tcl-spying
Attorney General Paxton alleges that the five companies' TVs are equipped with automatic content recognition (ACR) technology that 'captures your screen every 500 milliseconds, monitors your viewing behavior in real time, and transmits it to companies without your consent.' He also alleges that the companies profit from selling the information obtained through ACR to advertising companies, putting sensitive personal information, including users' passwords and bank details, at risk.
The opening sentence of the complaint against Sony is below. The complaint begins with the sentence, 'Sony's Smart TVs are watching you back.'
Attorney General Paxton claimed the companies were linked to the Chinese Communist Party, saying, 'Companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party have no right to illegally record devices in Americans' homes. This practice is invasive, deceptive, and illegal. Owning a television does not mean personal information is available to big tech companies or hostile foreign powers. In Texas, your fundamental right to privacy is protected.'
It is unclear whether the five companies targeted in this lawsuit actually implement a feature in their TVs that 'captures the screen every 500 milliseconds to monitor viewing behavior in real time.' However, Roku, a media streaming device manufacturer, has publicly announced the existence of a feature that 'takes 4K resolution snapshots twice per second and uses them in its advertising system,' indicating that this is technically possible. More information about Roku's ACR is available at the following link.
A Guide to ACR: The Future of TV and Audience Data
https://advertising.roku.com/learn/resources/acr-the-future-of-tv-and-audience-data
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