The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has asked the Federal Trade Commission (FCC) to investigate Samsung over what it says is the recording of private conversations in homes through the company’s television sets. The privacy rights group filed a complaint with the commission on Tuesday accusing Samsung of violating federal laws with a technology that allows viewers to operate the company’s Internet-connected smart TVs with voice commands.

In its complaint, EPIC accused Samsung of violating several laws intended to protect consumer privacy, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which prohibits the interception and disclosure of electronic communications, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which regulates collection of personal information from minors. The group asked the F.T.C. to investigate Samsung, halt its practice of transmitting voice recordings to third parties and examine other companies involved in similar practices.

Samsung ignited the debate over its privacy practices this month when it modified the privacy policy for its television sets, adding a sentence that suggested the sets were spying on their users in uncomfortable ways.

"Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of voice recognition," the sentence read.

After an outcry, Samsung said in a blog post that that sentence had "led to confusion" and sought to clarify that its voice recognition technology works only after a user pushes an activation button on a television remote control or screen and speaks into a microphone on the remote. Curiously, Samsung has not yet removed the original sentence from its privacy policy.