Your smart TV is watching you

TL;DR

Difficulty: 2/5
Time estimate: about 15 minutes for one TV following the settings steps in your brand guide; setting up a guest network (step 4 of the core defense below) may take longer depending on your router
Some TVs capture screenshots of what is on screen or send viewing fingerprints to the manufacturer; Samsung and LG sets were measured doing this in a UCL and UC Davis study. The fix is a few settings per brand, covered in the guides linked below.

What is ACR?

ACR stands for automatic content recognition. It is software built into most smart TVs that identifies what is on the screen. Researchers measured its traffic while TVs handled broadcast and cable TV and HDMI inputs like a game console or a Blu-ray player, so switching to a plugged-in device does not avoid it. In those same tests, the Samsung and LG sets sent no ACR uploads while third-party streaming apps were playing, though other platforms may behave differently.

Researchers at University College London and UC Davis tested current TVs and measured how often this happens. Samsung TVs captured screenshots every 500 milliseconds and sent fingerprints about every 60 seconds. LG TVs sent fingerprints every 15 seconds. In both cases, ACR stayed active while the TVs were used as plain displays over HDMI.

The method differs by maker, and the screenshot measurements above are Samsung's. LG says its ACR identifies content by audio fingerprinting and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, or video recordings (LG statement, September 12, 2026).

Those fingerprints feed advertising profiles. Your TV maker knows what you watch, when you watch it, and roughly what kind of household you are, and that data has value to advertisers.

Why TVs are so cheap

The short version: the hardware is partly paid for by the data and ads that come after the sale. A few documented numbers show the scale, with honest labels on what each number actually is:

Roku reported $4.145 billion in annual platform revenue for fiscal year 2025 in its 10-K filing. That figure is total platform revenue (advertising plus subscription distribution), not ACR revenue. No TV maker publishes a separate breakdown of ACR revenue, so anyone quoting you one is guessing.
Inscape, the ACR unit owned by Vizio, claims 28 million or more opted-in devices. That is a vendor claim from Vizio, not an independent count.
Walmart completed its acquisition of Vizio on December 3, 2024, for approximately $2.3 billion in fully diluted equity value. Walmart's own announcement tied the deal to growing Walmart Connect, its advertising business, through Vizio's TV platform.

Regulators have acted on this more than once:

In February 2017, the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney General settled with Vizio for a one-time $2.2 million payment. Vizio had collected viewing data on 11 million TVs without consent. It had to delete data collected before March 1, 2016, and adopt a comprehensive privacy program. The data Vizio attached to viewing records included sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education, home ownership, and household value.
On December 15, 2025, the Texas Attorney General sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, and TCL over TV tracking. Samsung settled in February 2026 and LG settled in May 2026. The LG settlement requires a pop-up disclosure and an opt-out, and its data transfer ban covers the Chinese Communist Party specifically. The Sony, Hisense, and TCL cases are still pending, and Hisense is under a temporary restraining order dated December 17, 2025 that bars it from collecting or selling ACR data in Texas. These settlements apply in Texas only; they do not change the settings on a TV anywhere else.

The core defense

Four steps cover most of the TV-level tracking:

Turn ACR off. Every brand hides it under a different name, which is why there is a separate guide per brand below.
Limit ad tracking. The control's name and direction depend on the platform and its age. Limit Ad Tracking (older Roku, LG): turn it on, since on means limited. Ad personalization or Personalized ads (current Roku, Fire TV, Google TV): turn it off. Your brand guide below gives the exact name and direction for your TV.
Turn voice features off if you do not use them. If your TV offers voice recognition and you never talk to it, switch it off too; an unused voice feature is worth disabling on its own.
Put the TV on a guest or IoT network. If your router offers a guest network, connect the TV to that instead of your main network. This keeps the TV away from your computers and phones. It does not stop ACR by itself, so do step 1 as well.

Honest limits

These steps reduce tracking by the TV itself. They do not stop tracking inside apps. Netflix, YouTube, and every other channel or app on the TV track what you do inside them under their own privacy policies, and turning ACR off does not change that. There is no setting that makes a connected TV fully private. If you want the strongest version, do the steps in your brand guide, and treat each app as its own separate privacy decision.

Which guide do I need?

Use the guide that matches the software your TV runs, which is not always the brand printed on the bezel:

If your TV is a Philips, Onn, Element, Panasonic, or another brand not listed above, do not guess. Open Settings, then look under System, Support, or Device (the exact labels vary) for About, and note which operating system the TV runs, such as Roku TV, Google TV, or Fire TV. US Philips sets, for example, run Google TV or Roku TV. Then follow the guide for that operating system. The ACR settings live in the software, so the OS guide is the right one even when the brand differs.

Xumo TV sets, made by Hisense, Pioneer, Element, Sharp, and Westinghouse, run Xumo OS and have no separate guide here. Xumo documents its privacy toggles under Settings, then Privacy, on its own support site, and it does not publish an ACR feature name for its TVs. Start with those toggles, and treat the honest limits above as applying in full.

What you lose

Turning off ACR and ad tracking costs you personalized recommendations and targeted ads on the TV home screen. Watching itself is unaffected for most viewers, but the brand guides list platform-specific trade-offs; for example, a Hisense viewing feature also adjusts picture and sound.

After / re-check

TV software updates can add new privacy toggles. After a major software update, spend two minutes re-checking the settings in your brand guide.

Last verified: October 26, 2026

Sources:

Only pay for the months that matter.

Plan your subscriptions with Dormant

If this page saved you money, tip the developer.