Texas AG: TV makers are taking screenshots of what users watch

The state of Texas is taking on Chinese tech companies.

This week the office of controversial Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed lawsuits against TV manufacturers Sony, LG, Samsung, TCL, and Hisense for allegedly using Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology to covertly screenshot what users are watching for data collection purposes.

According to Paxton’s press release, ACR captures a screenshot from TVs every 500 milliseconds, and transmits that data back to the manufacturer without the user’s knowledge or consent.

There’s no way for us to know if these companies are guilty of what Paxton is accusing them of doing right now. ACR is a real thing that’s primarily used to drive targeting advertising or personalized programming recommendations. You can turn it off on just about any smart TV, but that would require you knowing that it’s turned on in the first place.

Paxton is not just concerned about targeted advertising. Three of the five companies his office named in lawsuits are not Chinese, but Paxton emphasized the danger of giving viewing data to Chinese companies.

The AG claimed an “ongoing threat” from the Chinese Communist Party to the safety of Texans — without really saying what that threat was, or why it’s more dangerous for Chinese companies to collect data than Japanese or Korean companies like Sony and Samsung, respectively.

“Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” Paxton wrote. “This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries.”

Regardless of Paxton’s fearmongering approach, you probably should check to see if ACR is enabled on your TV and maybe do something about that if it is.