'Privacy Horror’: Researcher Uncovers Extent of Samsung Smart TV User Tracking

A researcher found that their Samsung smart TV was tracking them through several functionalities, including an "always on” microphone—and experts warn that similar tools could exist on other "everyday devices."

X user log4j claims to have reverse engineered his Samsung smart TV's firmware and discovered what they call a "privacy horror." One file called 'security-policy.xml’ featured functions including an always-on microphone, automatic content recognition, geo-positioning, network mapping, a targeted ads service, and user profile building, while Samsung TVs without a built-in microphone will look for one on connected devices such as a soundbar or Bluetooth speaker.

But a community note on the post points out that Samsung openly advertises some of these features. Its Pet Care and Family Care tools on Vision AI TVs listen for sounds like barking or crying and alert owners through the SmartThings app.

James Bore, a cybersecurity and technology consultant, told Decrypt that this isn't a new finding but just adding awareness to something that most people weren't aware of.

"The amount of monitoring that smart devices, from TVs to voice assistants to cars, do isn't secret as such, just not something promoted," Bore said. "If you read privacy policies and [End-User License Agreements], it's all in there in almost every case, but most people don't read those."

Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor at cybersecurity firm ESET, told Decrypt that this could be the start of a wave of similar findings, as a trend of AI-powered reverse engineering has swept the internet.

"AI-assisted reverse engineering may make it easier and faster for researchers to uncover and explain how devices collect, process, and share data," Bore agreed, "but the underlying collection itself is generally not new or unknown."

Decrypt has reached out to Samsung for comment and will update this article should they respond.

Bore added that smart TVs are monitoring user behavior to advertise to you better and persuade you to spend money. He added that this is "far from unique” to smart TVs.

Moore noted that this might be why TVs haven't seen a noticeable price increase in recent years.

"TVs haven’t really increased in price like some products over the last two decades and that may be because customer data collection is keeping those costs down," Moore said. "Smart TVs are doing far more behind the scenes than most people realise, as many can monitor what we are watching and collect our data to build profiles for targeted advertising."

Last week, smart TV owners started using AI coding agents like Claude Code to strip ads and tracking software out of their sets. One open-source project, Cleanyourtv, now lists tested setups for 107 TV models from 37 brands, though it only fully works on Android-based TVs—not Samsung’s Tizen operating system. However, as one Decrypt writer discovered, vibe-coded solutions can end up backfiring.

Both cybersecurity experts say that the public shouldn't be uniquely concerned about the functionalities revealed on Samsung TVs. Bore said that we should be more worried about how "blasé” we've become about accepting companies "constantly profiling us to manipulate us into spending more money on things we don't need."

"The concern is how much of our data is being collected and who it’s being shared with," Moore said. "It is possible to go through TV settings to minimise the amount of data access points are being used and analysed, but saying that, privacy shouldn’t be something you have to hunt through dozens of settings to find."

Those more anxious about security claim that this form of invasive data collection is enough for them to change their behavior.

Muneeb Ali, the co-founder of Stacks, a prominent Bitcoin layer-2 network, said that he doesn't handle private crypto keys in rooms with devices.

"We were paranoid that a hacked device could record or listen in," he tweeted. "Didn’t realize the TVs were literally 1st party programmed for full-on spying. Only the paranoid survive."