Smart TV 'unauthorised spying' claims, LG investigates

[Ink]

BBC: LG investigates Smart TV 'unauthorised spying' claim

Mr Huntley wanted to know how LG determined which ads should be shown on his TV

LG is investigating allegations that some of its TVs send details about their owners' viewing habits back to the manufacturer even if the users have activated a privacy setting.

It follows a blog by a UK-based IT consultant who detailed how his Smart TV was sending data about which channels were being watched.

His investigation also indicated that the TVs uploaded information about the contents of devices attached to the TV.

It could mean LG has broken the law.

DoctorBeet's Blog: LG Smart TVs logging USB filenames and viewing info to LG servers

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This information appears to be sent back unencrypted and in the clear to LG every time you change channel, even if you have gone to the trouble of changing the setting above to switch collection of viewing information off.

It was at this point, I made an even more disturbing find within the packet data dumps. I noticed filenames were being posted to LG's servers and that these filenames were ones stored on my external USB hard drive. To demonstrate this, I created a mock avi file and copied it to a USB stick.

And sure enough, there is was...