LG denies its smart TVs secretly record users after viral investigation

LG Electronics has issued a formal global statement denying that its smart TVs continuously record ambient audio and harvest user data, pushing back against a viral two-hour investigation published on September 7 by tech outlet Gamers Nexus that has drawn millions of views and sparked widespread concern over consumer privacy.

In a statement posted to its website and shared with news outlets, LG said its smart TVs "do not continuously record or transmit users' conversations," asserting that speech-to-text processing activates only when a user presses a voice button on the remote control or speaks a supported wake word. "Audio used for wake-word detection is processed locally on the TV and, if no wake word is detected, audio is not converted to text, stored, or transmitted," the company stated.mashable+2

What the Investigation Found

The Gamers Nexus report, produced in collaboration with Level1Techs and firmware researcher MrBruh, tested four retail LG units running the company's webOS operating system. The researchers found that a single TV mapped 38 devices on its local network, capturing display names, MAC addresses, internal IP addresses, and signal strengths — a practice LG confirmed to Tom's Hardware as a "standard function".ppc

The investigation measured roughly four gigabytes of content recognition data transmitted per TV per month and identified speech transcripts stored as plain text in RAM disk logs, with a capture window running 10 to 15 seconds after speech stopped. Researchers reported usable audio capture at distances exceeding 40 feet, and in some configurations, around corners at 60 to 70 feet. Four audio paths were identified that bypass the microphone toggle entirely, including USB webcams, the remote control microphone, HDMI audio, and a feedback microphone.ppc

Opt-In or Buried Consent?

LG maintains that features like Automatic Content Recognition, voice recognition, and interest-based advertising are optional and opt-in. The company acknowledged that where ACR is enabled, audio fingerprinting is used for audience segmentation and viewing data is shared with its majority-owned advertising subsidiary, LG Ad Solutions, and third-party providers. LG conceded that under applicable privacy laws, these data transfers may legally constitute a "sale" or "sharing" of personal information for targeted advertising.channelnews+1

Critics have noted LG's careful use of the word "continuously," which as Gizmodo observed, "is a bit of a weasel word" given the original report showed an LG TV transcribing ambient conversation well after researchers had stopped addressing it. Consumer advocates point out that opting out requires navigating multiple settings — Pocket-lint documented five separate steps to disable data collection — and that consent is bundled into roughly 22,300 words of legal documents during initial TV setup. Newcastle University Professor Lillian Edwards told TechRadar that "people often consent to things they don't fully understand during a speedy setup — they just want to get the thing done and up and working".gizmodo+1

LG's statement did not address the plain-text transcript storage or earlier findings by Spur research identifying proxy software development kits in roughly 43 percent of webOS applications tested.ppc