Smart TV viewers watch TV shows, listen to music, browse online, play games, access their files in the cloud, and share screens. Anyone can cast using Miracast software- Users to view material from their smartphones, tablets, or iPads on their TV screen and vice versa.

Smart TVs have also demystified online learning after the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020. Schoolchildren can now access school programmes, classes, and lab experiments from the comfort of their homes sitting in front of Smart TVs.

Table of contents

How does Smart TV work?                                                                                 1

Do You Need a Smart TV to stream online content?                                         2

What features to search for when buying a Smart TV?                                         2

What does a Smart TV do that a regular TV doesn’t?                                         2

What does your Smart TV know about you?                                                         2

What does your Smart TV do with your data?                                                 4

How do streaming services gather your data?                                                 4

What is automatic content recognition (ACR)?                                                 4

Should you use your TV as a browser or your smartphone as a TV remote?    5

How do you stop your Smart TV from harvesting data?                                 5

In conclusion                                                                                                         6

How does Smart TV work?

Smart TVs make use of wired Ethernet and built-in Wi-Fi, and software or an operating system/platform to access, manage, and view online and network-based media content with no satellite decoder connection.

When your Smart TV links to the internet, you’ll access an integrated platform (a menu of apps that pops up when you switch it on) that highlights the TV’s impressive features. Platforms differ based on the manufacturer of the device. Smart TVs commonly use the Roku platform, whereas Vizio Smart TVs use SmartCast.

Do You Need a Smart TV to stream online content?

You do not need a Smart TV to watch web content or use other apps on your TV. Instead, you can outfit a conventional TV with smart capabilities by using a streaming device such as the Amazon Fire TV Stick or Roku Streaming Stick, and other generic Android TV boxes.

If you search for a Smart TV, you’ll find many intelligent devices on the market today. Even if you are not specifically looking for this function, it may be featured on the TV you choose. If so, you will discover that smart features open new possibilities on how you watch TV, movies, and other content.

What features to search for when buying a Smart TV?

Smart TVs have become popular in recent years, giving extraordinary features that ordinary TVs could only dream of. Sony Bravia, LG, Samsung, and Panasonic smart TVs contain unique features such as;

• OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode), LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), and LED screens (Light Emitted Diode) – produce vibrant colours, higher contrast, and an overall more delightful viewing experience for customers.

• HDMI and Other Connection Ports – These are a set of connection ports to other peripherals such as DVR, DVD players, game consoles.

• Screen Resolution – The higher the screen resolutions the better. A higher resolution of 1980 × 1080 does offer a superior picture experience.

• Refresh Rate—relates to how television can refresh the display image (frame) per second.

• HDR Compatibility—High Dynamic Range is a technology that can increase a picture’s dynamic range between light and dark spots of an image (i.e., the contrast).

• Screen Size – Always ensure that you first measure your space and identify a viewing platform where you place your Smart TV.

What does a Smart TV do that a regular TV can’t?

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A Smart TV connects to the internet via Wi-Fi or a hardwired Ethernet connection to stream entertainment and TV programming. 

You may download apps, connect to social media, read internet material, and even download and stream music and movies besides watching your favourite television shows. A traditional, analogue television can only link to DVDs, game consoles, digital video recorders (VCR), satellite decoders, and other devices.

What does your Smart TV know about you?

Watching TV may be a harmless activity, but as TVs become smart—and connected to the internet via your network – they are also getting the power to spy on you, much like Big Brother. Smart TVs from Panasonic, LG, Samsung, and Sony collect data when you turn them on, both from the TV and the operating system and apps. Then, we have TV-connected gadgets, such as Google’s Chromecast, Apple TV, and Amazon’s Fire Stick.

Smart TVs are no longer mere gadgets for displaying material; they have evolved into two-way mirrors that secretly monitor you in real-time. This nefarious snooping is by a network of advertising, data brokers, and, worst of all, hackers, hidden behind firewalls. According to the FBI, hackers can invade your privacy by utilising webcams and voice control, such as Alexa, to steal your credit card information or blackmail you.

Rowenna Fielding, the founder and director of privacy consultancy Miss IG Geek, claims she can tell when a woman, for example, is in a relationship with a man. She can know the income bracket from the devices used, including the beliefs of the users. She can also learn about the values and cultural origins portrayed in the media we consume. Likewise, she may also locate one’s residence using the IP address (internet protocol) and determine when a person is using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). 

Winston privacy has unmasked the spying and cloaking behind the VPNs we use. These VPNs do not protect your online privacy. Winston pointed out startling information about these VPN companies. Six Chinese companies own 30% of the top VPN firms and remember in China, VPNs are illegal. Second, the Chinese own half of the most popular VPN smartphone apps. Last, the top 101 VPNs are owned by just 23 parent companies.

Most VPNs are run out of countries with lax privacy laws and many are hostile to the US, the UK, EU, including China, Pakistan, and Russia. Why do they want the data so badly?

Fielding continues that you can view what your partner, roommate, or family member watches if you share a Netflix account. Sharing of passwords allows others to view your account information. 

Smart TV snooping is tough to avoid. Researchers from Northeastern University and Imperial College London discovered that TVs and smart gadgets rout private data to Google’s Ad company and Netflix even when consumers did not have Netflix.

‘Online content streaming is increasingly dependent on collecting a big treasure trove of data on you,’ says Pat Walshe, data protection and privacy specialist, and the managing director of Privacy Matters Ltd.   On Netflix, this includes what you viewed and when you watched it, where you paused and where you stopped, the devices you used to access the video, and your location.

Walshe continues, ‘Every data point says something about you and offers recommendations. Netflix can use this data to comprehend where most customers stop watching, so they can improve next time.’

So, what vital information does Netflix cream off, and what steps can you take to make the service more private?

The manufacturer determines the information your Smart TV gathers, depending on its brand, and version. According to Toby Lewis, Head of Threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Darktrace, confirms that Smart TVs collect covertly audio, video, and TV usage data in principle.

One feature that has the potential to collect a big amount of data is voice activation. Microphones and software are listening for commands and can record conversations and other sounds that are within range. These recordings may be forwarded to third parties for analysis.

Another issue to address is cross-device tracking. According to Fielding, data acquired by your Smart TV is more valuable when integrated with information from other smart devices such as mobile phones, laptops, and home automation equipment. ’This allows individuals to be profiled: geolocation history, web browsing activity, and social media information may be added to TV data.

We also have cookies and trackers. Apps and browsers on Smart TVs, like webpages, use cookie- and pixel-tracking technologies to track, recognise, and identify devices for user profiling. "Most apps installed on your Smart TV will be snooping to a huge network of advertisers and data brokers, “claims Fielding.

What a Smart TV does with your data?

Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels 

No simple answers exist. According to Lewis, what your Smart TV does with the data is complex and ‘very opaque’. 'When examining what a Smart TV performs on the network, it is frequently unclear who captures sensitive data and where it is delivered.'

Most TV brands do have not much difference between them.  Manufacturers claim to use your information for 'personalisation' and content quality. However, it is typical for this data to be sold to third parties, whether anonymised or semi-anonymised, such as advertising businesses or streaming services. Lewis further explains that once the data is sold, the manufacturer has no control over it, depending on the Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) and privacy settings.  It is unclear what data is transmitted back, and it’s difficult to change default settings once you have consented to them. 

How do streaming services gather your data?

Streaming services on a Smart TV stealthily collect and send over large proportions of personal data to apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Now TV. The companies claim to only utilise data for essential services like recommendations and credit checks, do not mention data collected. Sensitive information includes device identifiers, geolocations, browser types, email addresses, and payment information. 

Netflix’s recommendations algorithm improves the service’s quality by assisting you in deciding which shows to watch. If you use a browser to access Netflix, you may change the privacy settings to minimise data gathered and shared. However, most of the information Netflix collects, such as the episodes you watch and when you view them, is essential to the service you cannot opt-out of it.

VIZIO, which manufactures popular, high-quality Smart TV sets, agreed to pay the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) a $2.2 million fine. As it turned out, Vizio tracks what their owners watch and send that information back to the company's servers, where eager advertisers salivate over its data hauls. 

What is automatic content recognition (ACR)?

Let's observe another eerie aspect to consider is called automated content recognition (ACR).  By default, the activated ACR feature combs and employs analytical approaches to recognise video and audio running on the TV; matching it against a large database to determine what is streamed. 

Photo by Ksenia Chernaya from Pexels 

Jake Moore, a global cybersecurity adviser at security company ESET, (Internet Security and Antivirus company) mentions that manufacturers share and sell viewing data and habits to advertisers to target you with advertisements. He adds that when your TV is connected to your home router, data will contain your IP address and location. 

In principle, ACR may be utilised for more vivid profiling. Lewis mentions that ‘with the analytical technologies available, data from facial recognition, sentiment analysis, speech-to-text and content analysis could be gathered to build an in-depth picture of a user’.

In a nutshell, Lewis pinpoints that ACR may theoretically be analysed for political position, race, socioeconomic situation, and other factors. 

Many have asked if you can use your TV as a browser or your smartphone as a TV remote. Yes, you can. You can download a specific TV remote app from the Google Play store, and you navigate the nooks and crannies of your smart TV.

This is a complicated task! Using your TV’s browser may be appropriate, but it’s a massive onslaught for ominous hackers. This is because your Smart TV browser lacks the antivirus and other security settings found on your smartphone or PC.

According to Dr Francisco Navarro, an expert from De Montfort University’s Cyber Security Centre in Leicester ‘cyber-attackers can eavesdrop on browser traffic and compromise cookies that handle authentication to online services. According to him, social media accounts and online banking will be vulnerable to hackers. It’s imperative to be wary of these threats.

How do you stop your Smart TV from harvesting data?

Smart TVs gather data if they are connected to the internet, and you cannot prevent this from happening. Often, it is not in your best interests to do so because it will interfere with your viewing experience—consider Netflix’s helpful recommendations features!

However, take basic precautions to protect yourself from Smart TV snooping. In the settings, turn off ACR, disable customisation, opt out of advertising features, and cover or disable cameras and microphones.

It’s also critical to secure your router and create a guest network. You can increase security by declining online tracking when offered and installing software updates when they become available. 

For Netflix, options exist to be enabled in your account settings to increase your privacy. Go to your Account, click Settings and you can opt-out of test participation.

In your Account settings, scroll down and click on your profile, this will take you to Communications Settings, which Netflix has defaulted to On. Turn these off by unticking the boxes, but it will continue receiving updates on new shows and tailor-made suggestions. In your profile, under Marketing Communications, you ensure that you haven’t opted into allowing Netflix to use your contact information ‘to send promotional communications on third-party services’.

Under Social Settings, you can see if you have logged into Netflix using Facebook – a service the streaming provider no longer offers – and remove your account if so.

Another way to stop data tracking is to reset your smartphone via a device ID, such as Apple’s identifier for advertisers (IDFA). On your iPhone, you can adjust using Apple’s App Tracking Transparency settings. When viewing Netflix on a browser, Fielding recommends using tracker blockers such as Privacy Badger, Ghostery uBlock Origin and clearing cookies.

If you are sharing your account with other family members or friends, and want to hide titles from your viewing history, go to your Account, Profile & Parental Controls. Click on the profile you want to update and Open Viewing Activity. On the Activity page, click on the hide icon next to the episode, series, or title.  You can also hide your viewing history, by selecting the Hide All option at the bottom of the page. This will hide your history from anyone with access to your account, but Netflix itself can still see what you’ve watched.

Because the router communicates with your Smart TVs, it is the most important device in your home. It monitors incoming and outgoing traffic, functioning as a sentinel to ensure that no hazardous information enters or leaves. It manages access to your home Wi-Fi network and all your phones, tablets, computers, and other devices. When one acquires access to that network, whether it’s a faraway hacker or your next-door neighbour, this intrusion compromises those devices too. 

It is preferable to change the Wi-Fi password frequently. Yes, it means you must reconnect your devices! Tiresome! Isn’t it? However, you will reduce unwelcome intrusion from cyber-attacks and unwanted snoopers.

Reddit tech enthusiasts advise against connecting your Smart TV to the internet. But then it wouldn’t be a Smart TV, would it?

Remember, it is vital to maintain your router safe. Fortunately, these steps aren’t too difficult or time-consuming, and they will reduce your risk.

In Conclusion

Finally, while Smart TVs are exciting developments in this digital millennium, it’s prudent to double-check their features before spending your hard-earned money. Check to be sure you’re buying a Smart TV with advanced whistles and bells. However, do not allow your Smart TV to be Pandora’s box when you use it. Be alert of the incursions those TVs make, and prevent Big Brother from spying on you, and stopping hackers in their tracks. The fantastic news is that Smart TVs have transformed the way we watch television. According to current statistics, the number of Smart TV users in the United States will reach 119 million by 2022, accounting for approximately 58.3 percent of all connected TV users.

Mwebe Morgan is a content producer, writer, editor, and proofreader. He specialises in academic, technical, and business writing. Furthermore, he works with business owners, writers, and students. Also, he loves narration, poetry, children’s literature, and non-fiction.