Samsung says that customers should avoid discussing personal information in front of their smart television set, since the information could be shared to third parties. The amazing warning is part of Samsung's privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets. It applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.

Samsung SmartTV scan be controlled with voice commands. To provide consumers the Voice Recognition feature, Samsung says that some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about users' devices, including device identifiers) to a "third-party" service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features. In addition, Samsung says it may collect and the TVs device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that it can provide consumers with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features.

"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," Samsung says.

Of course, you users may disable Voice Recognition data collection at any time. But without Voice Recognition, consumers will not be able to use interactive voice recognition features, although they may be able to control their TV using certain predefined voice commands. While Samsung says it would not collect spoken words, it may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that it can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it.

In response to the sharing of Samsung's policy statement, Samsung said that its privacy policy was an attempt to be transparent with owners in order to help them make informed choices about whether to use some features on its Smart TV sets, adding that it took consumer privacy "very seriously".

In late 2013, a UK IT consultant found also his LG TV was gathering information about his viewing habits. LG latewr released a software update which ensured data collection was turned off for those who did not want to share information.