Did you know that your smart TV will in all likelihood (a) use audio and video recognition technology to determine exactly what programming you are watching every second, whether it's over-the-air TV, cable TV, streaming, or even something you're watching from a computer hooked up to your TV as a monitor, (b) send this data to servers run by the TV manufacturers, who then (c) market the data to whoever's interested in it, and can combine it with other cross-platform data to create a detailed profile of your viewing, phoning, and living habits?
I didn't know either.
Just possibly, you may be one of the few people who know about the Vizio lawsuit filed by the New Jersey attorney general in 2017, joined by the Federal Trade Commission. The issue there was the Automated Content Recognition (ACR) software installed in every Vizio set. ACR takes audio and video snippets of whatever is being played on the TV and sends them to be matched to vast databases of content. In this way, the TV maker has a second-by-second profile of exactly what you are watching. Simply knowing that some third party can spy on your viewing habits is bad enough. But when they turn around and sell that information without your permission to advertisers or even nefarious actors (what if you use your TV as a monitor to check your bank account?), insult can turn quickly into injury.
Vizio settled the lawsuit by paying fines and promising to improve its disclosure practices. But clearly, if the new lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Dec. 15 of this year is any indication, ACR is still very much with us.
The companies named in Paxton's suit are Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL Technology. Paxton is concerned that China's National Security Law will allow its government to obtain data on U. S. citizens that is obtained by TV companies based in China. ACR data-harvesting is a big deal. One report said that at one point, Vizio was making more money selling ACR-acquired data than it was from selling TVs.
In retrospect, this isn't surprising. The idea that the customer is the product made the Google founders billionaires, so if the technical capability is there, why shouldn't TV makers share in the moolah? It's virtually impossible to even come near a mobile phone without having it figure out what kind of coffee you like, where you go for vacation, and what you talk about while you're waiting in line at the grocery store. That particular privacy horse is miles away from the barn, and there seems to be no way of getting it back.
But the idea that the outfit which made my TV is profiting from selling my viewing habits is a new one on me, anyway.
I'm old enough to remember when companies had to go to a lot of trouble to find out what shows were being watched, back in the 1960s when there were only three networks and maybe a local channel or two. Firms such as the Nielsen ratings people first asked selected consumers to keep written diaries of what they watched. This was a rather irksome process of questionable accuracy, so later Nielsen developed a machine they called the Audimeter. It automatically recorded the channel setting of the selected family's TV so they no longer had to write anything down.
Of course, such families were highly aware that they were being watched, and perhaps even took pride in being able to "vote" in a sense for shows that they liked. But that system is worlds away from the invasive practice of ACR, which every purchaser of TVs from certain brands participates in without his or her knowledge.
A study was made of how much trouble it is to turn off the ACR on a new TV, and the number of clicks required range from 11 to 27, once you figure out what the manufacturer calls their variant of ACR. Names like "Smart Features," "Enhanced Viewing Experience," and my favorite, "Personalized Recommendations" obscure the true nature of the function.
Opinions of Attorney General Paxton vary widely, and I am no fan of his in general. But in the case of ACR, I think his actions are highly warranted, especially because the data-gathering has been successfully concealed from millions of consumers.
Privacy is an odd kind of right that doesn't come first to mind when one thinks of human rights. The phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" from the Declaration of Independence encapsulates the gist of rights that we in the United States lay claim to. But the right to privacy, which can be defined as the right of keeping one's activities, personal data, and other identifying information away from scrutiny by strangers, is essential to one's freedom of action and even thought.
We are living at a time when, rightly or wrongly, certain opinions and trends of thought are being seized upon by government agencies and used to penalize individuals and groups. A case affecting my own university comes to mind. A professor at Texas State University gave a talk last September at an online conference that was being monitored by a conservative blogger, who re-posted his words as an example of inflammatory speech advocating the overthrow of the U. S. government. Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office reposted the item and brought pressure to bear on President Damphousse of Texas State University, who fired the tenured faculty member. The faculty member is suing the University, but currently he is out of a job.
Right now, the worst use that TV manufacturers are making of their ACR-gathered data is to sell it to advertisers and marketers. Perhaps it's annoying to watch a show on water skiing and then get bombarded by water-ski-equipment ads, but it's not a fundamental breach of your civil rights, exactly. What if at some point, the government decides that anybody who watches Show X is a traitor to the country, and deserves to be deported? That sounds ludicrous now, but if you had told me even five years ago that a tenured professor would be summarily dismissed for something he said in an online conference, I would have been reluctant to believe it.
Sources: The news release about Ken Paxton's lawsuit against five TV makers is at https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-paxton-sues-five-major-tv-companies-including-some-ties-ccp-spying-texans. The website Captain Compliance has a detailed explanation of ACR and its implications at https://captaincompliance.com/education/privacy-alert-how-automated-content-recognition-acr-is-watching-everything-you-watch/. I also referred to a news item at https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/texas-ag-sues-several-tv-companies-says-smart-tvs-are-spying-on-texans/ and the Wikipedia articles on Vizio and audience measurement.
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