LG has denied that its smart TVs continuously record conversations. In a statement published on September 12, the company said that background voices may enter speech recognition results during voice control, but that its TVs do not continuously record and transmit conversations in the home. At the same time, the TVs do have features that identify what is being watched and, with consent, use that information for analytics and advertising. To think clearly about TV privacy, it helps to separate these two issues, and then to check where a setting actually stops the process: collection, use, or storage.
Viewing Identification Persists Even When You Switch to HDMI
Suppose you skip the TV's built-in apps and connect an external player or a PC via HDMI. The TV can still identify what you are watching. Automatic content recognition (ACR) extracts features from programs and ads and matches them against known content. Changing the device that feeds the TV does not remove the function built into the TV that displays the picture.
What is used for identification varies by manufacturer. According to LG's explanation, the TV creates a fingerprint, a set of feature data used for matching, through internal audio processing. This is separate from voice recognition, which uses a microphone to pick up speech in the room. By contrast, Roku's guidance for the US says it creates feature data from a portion of the pixels on the screen and matches it against a catalog of programs, games and ads. Roku says content not in the catalog, such as personal videos, will not match.
So it is inaccurate to lump ACR together as a function that records the entire screen and sends it away. Still, even if the video itself is not sent, a successful match reveals what was being watched. Whether raw video is retained and whether viewing behavior can be known are separate questions.
Research has also examined network traffic independently of company statements. A paper on smart TV ACR presented at the ACM's IMC 2024 conference studied Samsung and LG TVs in the UK and the US, and observed ACR-related traffic even when the TVs were connected over HDMI. Logging out of the account made no substantial difference to the traffic behavior, the researchers reported.
On the other hand, when the researchers opted out of all the advertising- and tracking-related settings available on the TVs, communication with the identified ACR domains was no longer observed. No new ACR-related domains were found. That opting out through settings had an effect is also a result of this study.
However, this was an observation of the devices tested at that time, made without decrypting encrypted traffic. It does not guarantee what is contained in individual transmissions, or how every 2026 model behaves. Nor can it be concluded that switching off a single ad setting is enough, or that all TV communication stops.
Turning Off Ads, Stopping Collection and Deleting History Are Different
Roku says ACR can be disabled, but also states that data collected and used while it was enabled will continue to be retained. An action meaning "don't collect from now on" does not erase past history.
Stopping viewing data collection, limiting its use for advertising and deleting past data each need to be checked separately. Sorting what each company has published by what the setting acts on makes the differences clear.
| Subject of official explanation | Choices or consent available | Explained effect | What to check separately |
|---|---|---|---|
| LG: regions and models where ACR is offered | Consent to viewing information, plus additional consent for interest-based ads | Both consents are needed to use ACR for those ads | Not only ad consent, but also viewing-information consent and the ACR setting itself |
| Roku: ACR guidance for the US | Disable ACR in settings | The feature can be stopped, but data obtained and used while it was on is retained | How to delete past data, and what is covered |
| Sony: relevant FAQ for Japan | "Agree (excluding use by third parties outside the Sony Group)" | No difference in TV use from ordinary consent, and use by third parties outside the group is excluded | Consent to collection and use by Sony itself is a separate decision |
Sources: LG statement, Roku Support, Sony Support. The table organizes the explanations confirmed as of September 2026 by the distinctions among collection, use and retention. Regions and covered models differ, so it is not a ranking of safety.
Declining LG's additional advertising consent and deleting information Roku collected in the past solve different problems. Sony's option to exclude third-party use is likewise not a choice that stops data collection altogether. Even on screens with the same name, privacy settings, you need to read what is being permitted and what is being declined.
LG and Roku both explain that ACR is disabled by default. Even when checking that explanation, you should separately confirm what you agreed to during setup after purchase. A statement about the default state does not tell you which features are enabled on the TV in front of you now.
Revenue Continues After the TV Is Sold
TV viewing information has business uses in deciding whom to deliver ads to and how to measure their effect. Walmart announced the completion of its acquisition of VIZIO on December 3, 2024, at a price of about $2.3 billion. Walmart explained at the time that VIZIO's Platform+ segment, which centers on advertising, accounted for all of the company's gross profit.
Gross profit here differs from revenue or final net profit. Nor can all of Platform+'s profit be read as proceeds from selling viewing data. Even so, it is clear that the advertising business that continues after a TV is sold was stated as a goal of the acquisition. Walmart described combining it with its own advertising business, Walmart Connect.
Japan also has businesses that use viewing data for advertising analysis. Sony Marketing's announcement of December 2, 2024 explained that it would link viewing information obtained with consent on Bravia TVs to identifiers for ad delivery and other data, and use it in statistical form. The target at the time was more than 3.5 million units. In BROAD＋, its TV commercial ad delivery service, the data would also be used to analyze the effects of ad placements.
This is not evidence that the same ACR approach that became an issue overseas runs on every model in Japan. Still less does it show unauthorized recording of conversations. What it shows is that Japanese TV users, too, face decisions about consenting to the collection of viewing information and its use for advertising.
Whether ads appear on the screen is not enough to judge how viewing information is used. As Sony's explanation shows, advertisers can also use data to choose broadcast slots and examine the effect of their placements. Showing ads on your own TV and your viewing being used for ad analysis are not necessarily the same thing.
Where Japanese Users Should Look
Sony's FAQ mentioned above explains that even if you select "do not agree" to the privacy policy, you can still watch TV broadcasts, but functions such as AirPlay become unavailable. If you choose only to exclude use by third parties outside the group, use is no different from ordinary consent. It is not a binary choice between agreeing fully and giving up on using the TV.
A realistic approach is to confirm whether this guidance applies to your model, then choose the features you need and the data uses you will permit. If you watch video through an external device, also check the viewing-information settings that remain on the TV itself. As the research above indicates, logging out or switching to HDMI may not amount to an action that stops ACR.
LG's statement also says that in markets where ACR is not offered, it does not collect or process the related data. Setting names and features for overseas markets cannot be applied to every product sold in Japan. Which consent items to check also depends on whether you want to stop identification of what you watch or avoid using voice control.
The way consent is presented has already become a target for correction. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a settlement with LG on May 11, 2026. According to the state's description, the agreement includes explaining the collection and use of viewing data in a pop-up on the TV and providing an easy-to-understand way to decline. This is a US state case; it does not mean the terms apply in Japan, nor does it represent a judicial ruling on the recording allegations in general.
If manufacturers describe a feature as optional, screens are needed that let users distinguish between choosing to stop collection and choosing only to decline advertising use. And for people who want to erase past information, the means to decide how their data is used after purchase are complete only when the data that can be deleted and the steps to do so are also shown.