Claims follow scrutiny over monitors installing adware without user consent
UPDATED LG is once again fending off allegations that its expensive consumer hardware gathers extensive information about users and their surroundings for the benefit of its advertising business.The latest concerns center on smart TVs that researchers claim continued capturing audio after voice recognition was activated, including while the display was in standby.The claims once again come from the folks behind the Gamers Nexus YouTube channel, which also claimed in July that LG's monitors were surreptitiously installing adware using an automatic Windows process.
After inspecting the TVs' network traffic and internal data, editor-in-chief Stephen Burke said the team found plaintext transcripts generated from audio captured by the TV, along with other information.
The Gamers Nexus crew said it observed the TV collecting IP addresses, location data, and the names, signal strengths, and channel numbers of nearby Wi-Fi networks.The TV also enumerated devices on the local network that were not paired with it, including smartphones, watches, routers, thermostats, air purifiers, server baseboard management controllers, and PCs.Burke added that Wireshark packet capture analysis revealed such a large quantity of private data that it couldn't be displayed in the video, and that this was all native behavior from LG's equipment.He said the findings represented "an egregious invasion of privacy."Burke and company also claimed that the TVs could continue capturing audio while disconnected from the internet, store it locally, and transmit related data after connectivity was restored.Burke said the team was working with security researchers to disclose vulnerabilities responsibly, including an alleged remote code execution flaw.LG previously told other publications that its TVs do not "collect, record, or store ambient conversations," and that voice recognition is an optional feature that processes voice data only when activated by the user.LG's relationship with ads
