Big Brother can hear what you say…

In George Orwell’s classic tale of a dystopian society 1984 citizens were watched by an all-knowing totalitarian leader named Big Brother via TV monitors positioned in homes and work places (no, it wasn’t a reality TV show first). Now, it seems we need to worry if our TV screens are actually ‘hearing’ what we say in private.

Technology brand Samsung is warning customers against discussing personal or sensitive information in their lounge rooms since its new voice-activated Smart TV sets can pick up and transmit what they say. Spoken words will be “among the data captured and transmitted to a third party” according to the company’s new TV’s fine print.

The policy continues to state that “while Samsung will not collect your spoken word, Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data [ie: including conversation] so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it.”

Consumers concerned about privacy breach have expressed their astonishment that information the brand can collect information even without consent (ie: the TV sets are usually purchased before the policy is read or heard).

Basically, it leaves users with no knowledge or control over where their private talk gets distributed to.

The voice recognition feature can of course be deactivated but, as even the average couch potato can vouch for, even an accidental push of a button on the remote can mean you don’t know a particular feature is on. Just one more piece of technology for us to worry about, then.  Antonino Tati