How to stop Samsung’s smart TVs from spying on you
Last week, we told you about just how scary Samsung’s smart TV privacy policy was. One quote from Samsung’s terms and conditions says it all: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.” Yikes.
Samsung has since responded twice to the uproar surrounding its privacy policy,explaining that the aforementioned statement is a precaution intended to cover a scenario that is highly unlikely to occur.
All the same, however, it can occur — but there’s an easy way to make sure that it’s impossible for your Samsung smart TV to accidentally spy on you.
DON’T MISS: It looks like Samsung found yet another way to copy Apple in the Galaxy S6
It is widely known that Samsung’s HDTVs have some of the best displays in the business. In fact, Samsung’s TV display knowhow is what led to Samsung’s industry-leading smartphone and tablet displays. But people overly concerned with privacy might have trouble pulling the trigger on a Samsung TV after all of the recent attention the company’s privacy policy has drawn.
Luckily, however, there’s an incredibly easy way to make absolutely certain that your Samsung smart TV never spies on you.
Here’s a step by step guide:
- Press the menu button on your remote and access the Settings menu
- Scroll to Smart Features and press select
- Then scroll down until you reach Voice Recognition and disable that setting
Voila! Your TV can no longer listen in on your conversations — intentionally or accidentally. Of course, this will disable all of your voice control functionality, but truth be told, it doesn’t work very well on many models anyway.
Now, the only real problem you’ll have to deal with on your gorgeous Samsung smart TV is the horribly annoying pop-up ads.
Replies
no surprise there............my 20 yr old tv is a bit pissed off .........haha
My favorite memory involving an old television with tubes is shooting one with an M1 rifle (outside, while watching Dan Rather) and watching the TV set "blow up." I could see why Elvis Presley loved doing this (he reportedly shot ten tv's in his house); it's one of the weirdest acts of destruction you'll ever see. And yes, it brings new meaning to the expression "kill your television."
Lol Malcolm, I love that idea! :)
If I only had a shotgun I would probably go and kill some televisions for fun as well ;)