How your TV sees what you see

ACR - Automatic Content Recognition

With a technical function similar to how Shazam works allows manufacturers of smart TVs to see what you see. Between 2 and 10x per second, a 'screenshot' of a small part of the screen is taken. From that, your TV creates a 'fingerprint' and this can be compared with the 'fingerprints' in a database of images. Vendors, such as Samsung and LG, can know what you watch because of this and can build viewer profiles, display personalised ads on your TV and trade this data (or derivatives thereof) with third parties. 

As long as your TV is connected to the internet, images can be analysed, so even when you use the TV as a 'dumb' screen and the images come from, say, an XBOX, or 'screencast' from your laptop. 

The technology has been in development for years and has also been the subject of privacy research by academics for years. Under the AVG, it (thankfully) requires user consent. 

Not on Netflix

From recent research shows shows that when using streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube (via the app on the television), no ACR takes place. The most likely explanation is that these services want to keep these kinds of statistics to themselves, do not want to expose their users to this kind of third-party data collection without question, and cite copyright infringement as an argument for this. 

Of course, your viewing behaviour is still analysed, just not by the (third) parties who only supply you with the screen on which that content is played. Conversely, streaming services do collect data about the devices you use, the name of your home network and other devices on your network. 

Logged in?

If you want to update your TV apps, or view content provided by the maker of your TV, in many cases you will be logged in. For using ACR, it appears that make little difference, but for linking to your person, of course. Through your e-mail address, your data can be linked to other data sources. 

Opt-in / Opt-out

The main conclusion is that the TVs tested do adhere to the opt-in (or outside the EU the opt-out) setting. 

In our own research, we tested this setting on a Samsung TV, but after giving explicit permission, it remained silent. We did not take any connection to Samsung's (or third-party) servers. 

One possible explanation for this is that, as an end user, you have no reason to turn it on and so hardly anyone will do it. Suppliers will never reach sufficient mass within the EU because of this.