Samsung SmartTV privacy policy admits that it records and transmits your private conversations

Inevitably, the frontier of digital information has caused quite a stir within the human race.  It has given us the ability to multiply and miniaturize information, sending it to millions while, at the same time, diminishing our control of who can't see it.  When you can control who sees your information, you can set the price and charge per view.  When you can't control it, you've entered a new paradigm, where the freedom of information is implicit.

Freedom of information and privacy are like two sides to a coin.  While we want other people, including governments, to be honest and share their information with us, we still want the option to keep our information private.  The reality is, transparency is a two way street.  And transparency does not mean that every thought, feeling and action is public knowledge.  Spy agencies and personal secrets are also two sides to a coin.

So, kicking and screaming, we have been dragged into the age of "smart" tvs and "smart" telephones that can record, transmit and translate what you say.  Enter: Samsung's "SmartTV," a device capable of recording and transmitting your voice.  The television, itself, is not smart enough to understand what you're saying, so it sends the data to an undisclosed "third party" to do the translating.  From their privacy policy:

 

"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."

 

According to Samsung, you can "turn the feature off or disconnect the TV completely from your wifi."

 

It doesn't seem wholly insidious, but the technology creeps closer to a constant microphone, a computer waiting patiently, listening for commands.  The reality is that it's not just the computer listening; those commands are being stored somewhere, often unknown.

It's a dramatic change from, say, the days of wire-tapping because now we invite the products that can record us into our home.  We send our voices to "third parties," of whom we have no idea.  It is a compliance of convenience.  Are we destined to become cogs in a giant recording machine, guided around by Google androids and Siris, punished for going outside the lines?  Or is it our human penchant for being different, breaking the law to change the law and violating society's norms what will overcome?  Perhaps there will never be one set path.  Maybe we will violently confront digital information containment, revolting against a government that is attempting to control us by recording our thoughts.  Maybe that will be uneccesary; that we will create a society without the archaic representative government, and use this free information to police ourselves.  It is not far off that we fuse freedom and trust.

 

If you are concerned that you are being recorded and want to go off the record, disconnect your cellular and wi-fi devices.  Pull the batteries and the plugs.  Don't let paranoia overcome you, but privacy is something that must be worked at; it is not automatic.

 

 

http://gizmodo.com/samsungs-smart-tv-privacy-policy-raises-accusations-of-1684534051

http://www.samsung.com/sg/info/privacy/smarttv.html

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/janitors/14441242612/