How To Prevent Your Smart TV From Spying On Your Activities

While most of us typically focus on the unwanted tracking being done by the apps and websites on our computers and phones, smart TVs are quietly collecting almost as much data about us. Modern TVs have become smarter and have started collecting an insane amount of data from their viewers using software called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR). People may unintentionally enable this feature while setting up a TV, not realizing what privacy they are giving up.

ACR records everything, regardless of whether you are utilizing the best streaming services and apps, or viewing other items on your TV screen, such as your security camera feed, personal photo slideshows, or what you cast from your phone or play via a connected device. This data not only reaches the TV manufacturer but potentially its partners, too.

So, if you're alarmed at the scope of this data collection, there is a way to stop it. It may require wading through your device's settings, but you can disable the data tracking. Here are the steps on how to do so on all major smart TV platforms. Remember, this won't disable all the data collection happening on your TV – your streaming apps may also be snooping on you – but it will significantly reduce the spying.

LG uses the webOS platform in all of its smart TVs, as well as smart monitors like the Smart Monitor Swing. As you may expect, the company uses ACR to collect data about what you're watching on your TV. The data collected by your TV goes to LG as well as a company called Alphonso, which refers to itself as a TV data company.

However, you can stop ACR data collection by removing the permissions you may have given to Viewing Information. To stop ACR, open Settings on your LG TV by pressing the gear icon on your remote. Then, navigate to All Settings > Support > Privacy & Terms > User Agreements. Here, you'll see a list of all the agreements and whether you have accepted them or not. You can scroll down to the Viewing Information Agreement and deselect it to remove permission for ACR. After deselecting it, select Agree at the bottom of the page to confirm your updated selection. This will restart your TV to stop any data collection services that may be active. 

Keep in mind, by not accepting the Viewing Information Agreement, you will lose access to the TV's voice control functions despite having accepted the Voice Information Agreement. Besides the Viewing Information Agreement, you can also disable the Interest-Based Advertisement Agreement, Data Partners Agreement, and Marketing Communications Agreement to stop any other data collection, sharing, or receiving marketing messages.

Tizen is Samsung's smart TV platform of choice and is found in all of its TVs. Like LG and Sony, Samsung TVs use ACR to track your viewing patterns. Fortunately, you can turn it off as part of the Viewing Information Services option. First, press Home on your remote to reach the TV home screen; then navigate left to the sidebar menu to find Privacy Choices. On the Privacy Choices screen, select Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, and uncheck the box for Viewing Information Services. You'll also see an option for Interest-Based Advertisements Service U.S. Privacy Notice on the same screen; you can disable it to stop targeted advertising.

If you don't see the Privacy Choices option in the sidebar on your Samsung TV. You can alternatively go to Settings > All Settings > General & Privacy > Terms & Privacy to turn off both Viewing Information Services and Interest-Based Advertisements.

Several of the most popular TV brands, including Hisense, Sony, and TCL, incorporate the Android TV or Google TV platform into their sets. While Google itself doesn't employ ACR to collect data about what's on your screen, it does collect a lot of your data. You can stop Google's targeted advertisements on Google TV devices by navigating to Settings > Privacy > Ads and resetting or deleting the Advertising ID. Android TV models will have the same option in Settings > Device Preferences or Settings > About > Legal Information. 

Besides Google's data collection, your TV manufacturer may have its own tracking. For example, Sony TVs include ACR by Samba TV, which is a company that collects data from various TV models to determine what people are watching and shares that information with its clients. You can disable it by going to Settings > Device Preferences or System > Samba Interactive TV. Similarly, on TCL TVs, you can opt out of the User Experience Improvement Program to stop any potential data tracking. To do so, navigate to Settings > Privacy > User Agreements and withdraw your consent from the User Experience Improvement Program.

Similar to Google TV, the Fire OS platform is used by multiple manufacturers, such as Hisense, Panasonic, and Amazon itself. Like Google TV, it doesn't use ACR but still collects data about what you're watching from the connected antenna or streaming apps. You can disable this by going to Settings > Preferences > Privacy settings.

You will also find options for Collect App and Over-the-Air Usage, Device Usage Data, and Interest-Based Ads in the Privacy Settings. Each of these options is enabled by default and facilitates tracking of other data collected by your Fire TV usage. Luckily, you can turn each off without impacting the TV functionality. Moreover, you can reset the Advertising ID to disable targeted advertising. If you have a newer Fire TV model, you have another option called Manage Sharing From Apps, which governs whether third-party apps can share data about your content viewing to Amazon. You can and probably should disable it too.

Roku OS is another popular smart TV platform that you'll find on the company's own media streamers, TVs, as well as TVs from other manufacturers, such as Hisense, TCL, Insignia, and Philips. TVs and media streamers with Roku OS have multiple options that allow you to disable a wide range of data collection, including what's done by ACR.

Navigate to Settings > Privacy, and you will see different options for Advertising, Voice, Smart TV Experience, Privacy Policy, and Privacy Choices. You can go to each of these options and disable the relevant options to stop data tracking. For example, you can turn off Personalize Ads, or if you don't use the voice feature on your TV, you can turn off Microphone Access and Speech Recognition to stop any voice data from being collected and analyzed.

In the Privacy menu, you'll also find the Smart TV Experience and Privacy Choices options.  You can disable the Use Info From TV Inputs option to stop ACR, and the Privacy Choices options allow you to disable the sharing or selling of your data.