Simple answer: Yes.
Smart television sets (TVs)
A December 10, 2024 Universidad Carlos III de Madrid press release (also on EurekAlert) offers details about the data collected by smart TVs,
A scientific team from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), in collaboration with University College London (England) and the University of California, Davis (USA), has found that smart TVs send viewing data to their servers. This allows brands to generate detailed profiles of consumers’ habits and tailor advertisements based on their behaviour.
The research revealed that this technology captures screenshots or audio to identify the content displayed on the screen using Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology. This data is then periodically sent to specific servers, even when the TV is used as an external screen or connected to a laptop.
“Automatic Content Recognition works like a kind of visual Shazam, taking screenshots or audio to create a viewer profile based on their content consumption habits. This technology enables manufacturers’ platforms to profile users accurately, much like the internet does,” explains one of the study’s authors, Patricia Callejo, a professor in UC3M’s Department of Telematics Engineering and a fellow at the UC3M-Santander Big Data Institute. “In any case, this tracking—regardless of the usage mode—raises serious privacy concerns, especially when the TV is used solely as a monitor.”
The findings, presented in November [2024] at the Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2024, highlight the frequency with which these screenshots are transmitted to the servers of the brands analysed: Samsung and LG. Specifically, the research showed that Samsung TVs sent this information every minute, while LG devices did so every 15 seconds. “This gives us an idea of the intensity of the monitoring and shows that smart TV platforms collect large volumes of data on users, regardless of how they consume content—whether through traditional TV viewing or devices connected via HDMI, like laptops or gaming consoles,” Callejo emphasises.
To test the ability of TVs to block ACR tracking, the research team experimented with various privacy settings on smart TVs. The results demonstrated that, while users can voluntarily block the transmission of this data to servers, the default setting is for TVs to perform ACR. “The problem is that not all users are aware of this,” adds Callejo, who considers this lack of transparency in initial settings concerning. “Moreover, many users don’t know how to change the settings, meaning these devices function by default as tracking mechanisms for their activity.”
This research opens up new avenues for studying the tracking capabilities of cloud-connected devices that communicate with each other (commonly known as the Internet of Things, or IoT). It also suggests that manufacturers and regulators must urgently address the challenges that these new devices will present in the near future.
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Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Watching TV with the Second-Party: A First Look at Automatic Content Recognition Tracking in Smart TVs by Gianluca Anselmi, Yash Vekaria, Alexander D’Souza, Patricia Callejo, Anna Maria Mandalari, Zubair Shafiq. IMC ’24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM on Internet Measurement Conference Pages 622 – 634 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3646547.3689013 Published: 04 November 2024
This paper is open access.
Cars
This was on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) Day Six radio programme and the segment is embedded in a January 19, 2025 article by Philip Drost, Note: A link has been removed,
When a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day [2025], authorities were quickly able to gather information, crediting Elon Musk and Tesla for sending them info about the car and its driver.
But for some, it’s alarming to discover that kind of information is so readily available.
“Most carmakers are selling drivers’ personal information. That’s something that we know based on their privacy policies,” Zoë MacDonald, a writer and researcher focussing on online privacy and digital rights, told Day 6 host Brent Bambury.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said the Tesla CEO was able to provide key details about the truck’s driver, who authorities believe died by self-inflicted gun wound at the scene, and its movement leading up to the destination.
With that data, they were able to determine that the explosives came from a device in the truck, not the vehicle itself.
“We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself,” Musk wrote on X following the explosion.
To privacy experts, it’s another example of how your personal information can be used in ways you may not be aware of. And while this kind of data can useful in an investigation, it’s by no means the only way companies use the information.
“This is unfortunately not surprising that they have this data,” said David Choffnes, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University in Boston.
“When you see it all together and know that a company has that information and continues at any point in time to hand it over to law enforcement, then you start to be a little uncomfortable, even if — in this case — it was a good thing for society.”
CBC News reached out to Tesla for comment but did not hear back before publication.
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I found this to be eye-opening, Note: A link has been removed,
MacDonald says the privacy concerns are a byproduct of all the technology new cars come with these days, including microphones, cameras, and sensors. The app that often accompanies a new car is collecting your information, too, she says.
The former writer for the Mozilla Foundation worked on a report in 2023 that examined vehicle privacy policies. For that study, MacDonald sifted through privacy policies from auto manufacturers. And she says the findings were staggering.
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Most shocking of all is the information the car can learn from you, MacDonald says. It’s not just when you gas up or start your engine. Your vehicle can learn your sexual activity, disability status, and even your religious beliefs [emphasis mine].
MacDonald says it’s unclear how they car companies do this, because the information in the policies are so vague.
It can also collect biometric data, such as facial geometric features, iris scans, and fingerprints [emphasis mine].
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This extends far past the driver. MacDonald says she read one privacy policy that required drivers to read out a statement every time someone entered the vehicle, to make them aware of the data the car collects, something that seems unlikely to go down before your Uber ride.
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If that doesn’t bother you, then this might, Note: A link has been removed,
And car companies aren’t just keeping that information to themselves.
Confronted with these types of privacy concerns, many people simply say they have nothing to hide, Choffnes says. But when money is involved, they change their tune.
According to an investigation from the New York Times in March of 2024, General Motors shared information on how people drive their cars with data brokers that create risk profiles for the insurance industry, which resulted in people’s insurance premiums going up [emphases mine]. General Motors has since said it has stopped sharing those details [emphasis mine].
“The issue with these kinds of services is that it’s not clear that it is being done in a correct or fair way, and that those costs are actually unfair to consumers,” said Choffnes.
For example, if you make a hard stop to avoid an accident because of something the car in front of you did, the vehicle could register it as poor driving.
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Drost’s January 19, 2025 article notes that the US Federal Trade Commission has proposed a five year moratorium to prevent General Motors from selling geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer report agencies. In the meantime,
“Cars are a privacy nightmare. And that is not a problem that Canadian consumers can solve or should solve or should have the burden to try to solve for themselves,” said MacDonald.
If you have the time, read Drost’s January 19, 2025 article and/or listen to the embedded radio segment.