This Sunday, more than 100 million people will tune in to watch the Super Bowl, especially those living in San Francisco and Kansas City, but unbeknownst to many, their TVs will also be watching them.
Americans will increasingly turn to smart TVs and streaming services to watch the game this year. According to the Leichtman Research Group, 74% of U.S. TV households now have at least one internet-connected TV device.
A smart TV makes it easy for people to connect to the internet, stream videos from services such as Netflix and Hulu, and quickly search for their favorite TV shows or movies. While there are plenty of benefits associated with smart TVs, many consumers are unaware that these devices and apps are collecting and sharing significant amounts of your data.
Researchers at Princeton and the University of Chicago conducted a study that compared set-top streaming devices from Roku and Amazon Fire TV. The researchers created a tool to monitor data flows and found trackers on 69% of Roku channels and 89% of Amazon channels of the more than 2,000 channels offered by both services.
These numbers are alarming, especially when most consumers have no idea their viewing habits are being tracked by their TVs or streaming devices. So how can you stop your TV from snooping on you and selling your data to third parties?
Companies track what you’re watching by constantly sending snippets of what’s on your TV back to their labs. There they compare those images to a vast library of different shows to match up what’s on your screen. This process, called automated content recognition, is utilized by most major TV manufacturers.
The easiest solution is to cut off the smart features altogether by disconnecting your television from your Wi-Fi network in the TV’s settings. Without internet access, the TV cannot send information to anyone, meaning your data stays at home. However, it also means your TV’s built-in apps won’t be able to stream any movies or shows.
Another alternative, which will allow you to keep streaming, is to figure out how to turn tracking off. Most companies try to get you to agree to this data collection during initial setup — and if you missed it then, there’s generally a place in settings where you can switch it off. Of course, these companies don’t make it easy, and often hide the control in unlikely places. Still, if you don’t want your television’s manufacturer to create a dossier of all the shows you and your family watch, it’s worth spending five or 10 minutes digging around to try to turn it off.
Of course, corporate surveillance and a casual disregard for personal privacy is not unique to TVs. Consumers should not have to spend time navigating their settings to protect their privacy. Tech companies should build devices such as TVs, thermostats, cameras and kitchen appliances with proper privacy and security protocols in place before the products hit the market. Making devices that are secure and private by default should be a priority for manufacturers, and consumers should be given more control over their personal data.
Consumers deserve better. And after years of inaction, policymakers at the state and federal levels in the U.S. must push forward like their counterparts in Europe did with the General Data Protection Regulation, which took broad action in 2018 to regulate how companies collect data (though that law is still indifferently enforced).
Recently, the historic California Consumer Privacy Act was signed into law to advance consumer protections. The privacy law allows Californian consumers to take control over their data by enabling them to know what personal information is being collected about them, access that data and opt out of any sales. But there are limitations to the law. For example, the CCPA provides opt-out rights, but only for sale, not data collection by the manufacturer to use however they like (and even then, the law is vague and has exceptions).
The CCPA is a groundbreaking and historic first step in extending privacy safeguards to consumers, but as millions of Americans get ready to watch the Super Bowl this weekend, the country’s most televised event is an important and timely reminder that a strong, national bill is needed to ensure that the digital rights of all Americans are being protected. Until lawmakers in Washington can agree on a path forward, states such as California are likely to fill the void by establishing baseline privacy protections for consumers.
Any future bills should draw from and improve upon what California is doing. Lawmakers must incorporate strong protections that advance consumer rights and are backed up by strong enforcement so that they can hold bad actors accountable.
Justin Brookman is director of consumer privacy and technology policy for Consumer Reports. Previously, Brookman was policy director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Technology Research and Investigation.
"TV" - Google News
January 30, 2020 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/2GBAHAg
Your smart TV is watching you back - San Francisco Chronicle
"TV" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2T73uUP
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Your smart TV is watching you back - San Francisco Chronicle"
Post a Comment