Following our story yesterday LG has come out and admitted that their Smart TV’s are sending information on viewing habits back to the TV manufacturer.LG which is the second biggest supplier of TV’s in Australia said that it will shortly release a firmware update that “fixes an issue where user data got fed back to LG”. Currently TV viewing data is sent back to LG irrelevant of whether a user has ticked an option box denying access to the data.
A statement from the Korean company provided to ChannelNews and SmartHouse, advised that the data, which included the TV channel and platform, is intended to help provide viewing recommendations to other owners of LG smart TVs. Collecting the name of files on attached USB devices is also for a feature, one which would provide more details about TV shows or films being viewed.
LG advises that it did not store private data, and in order to rectify this, will make sure that its data collection options work based on what the user selects. According to the statement, LG “regrets any concerns these reports may have caused and will continue to strive to meet the expectations of all our customers and the public.”
