It’s not just smart TVs. Your home is full of gadgets that spy on you: How internet giants are collecting your personal data through their high-tech devices

‘This evening, while you settle down to watch Death In Paradise or Birds Of A Feather, the disturbing reality is that your television set may also be watching and listening to you.

If you own a ‘smart TV’ from South Korean tech giant Samsung, every word you say can be captured by the device and beamed over the internet to Samsung and to any other companies with whom it chooses to share your data.

This ability for the TV to earwig your conversations on the sofa is part of the set’s voice command feature, which enables viewers to tell the TV to change channels rather than use a remote.’

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Stopping a Smart TV From Eavesdropping On You Could Be a Felony

‘Most smart TVs’ core operating systems are based on the open-source software Linux. According to Linux’s license, companies are supposed to provide customers with a copy of the source code and the ability to install a modified version. But many smart TVs have violated that license.

To make matters worse, high-level users who want to take their smart TVs apart to see how they work or to attempt to disable or modify the underlying software—for example, to disable the eavesdropping software, or make modifications to make captions easier to read for the visually impaired—could face felony charges under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

That’s because most smart TVs on the market have taken technological measures to prevent users from accessing or modifying firmware in order to prevent illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted material. But users could technically face felony charges for circumventing lockdown restrictions—even if the modifications they’re trying to make are legal under copyright law.’

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