New TVs are packed with features that are often buried in the menus. Some, like Filmmaker mode and brightness settings, are essential and improve my viewing experience. I don't use others, like motion smoothing and energy saving, but understand their benefits. A third category exists of hidden privacy risks with no benefits to me or you.
TV brands add these features to mine viewing, voice, and other data to help “improve the experience.” This actually means targeting us with ads and selling our information to third parties. Automated Content Recognition (ACR) is probably the most invasive feature, and you should disable it on any TV you buy.
What is ACR, and why is it a privacy risk?
You don't benefit from this invasive feature
ACR is like a spy working in the background and recording everything on your screen. It takes screenshots of whatever you're viewing, whether it's a movie, game, or YouTube video, and uploads them to your TV brand's servers. The saved content is then compared to a database to create a record of your viewing habits, supposedly to improve recommendations.
According to the LG user agreement, ACR will “Identify the content you watch or listen to on your device regardless of the source of information.” It does this to “provide relevant content and improve your user experience.” This is a roundabout way of saying it's mining your data..
The information ACR gathers includes the content you're watching, location data, IP addresses, ad completion rates, and more.
Some of the information ACR gathers includes the content you're watching, location data, IP addresses, ad completion rates, and more. LG gathers your data and also shares it with third parties, like marketing agencies and networks, to increase their ad revenue.
ACR doesn't usually collect RAW screenshots. It converts the data into digital fingerprints, which are…