LG smart TVs are under renewed scrutiny after a detailed investigation found they can continue collecting sensitive data about owners and their homes even when the display is off and, in some cases, when the television is not connected to the internet. Researchers spent weeks analyzing network traffic and internal logs of retail LG OLED models, uncovering behavior that many users would find surprising.
What the investigation found
The investigation, led by the hardware review channel Gamers Nexus in partnership with Level1Techs and independent security researchers, tested LG OLED TVs exactly as consumers would receive them. By capturing the network traffic with packet inspection tools, the team was able to watch what the television sends to remote servers. What they found went far beyond ordinary smart TV telemetry.
The TVs were constantly scanning the local area network for nearby hardware. That means they could detect smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and other connected devices in the same home, building a silent inventory of devices and their network identifiers. This information was combined with location data and details about nearby Wi-Fi networks, then sent back to LG Ad Solutions, LG's advertising-focused unit.
That behavior continued even when the TV appeared to be off. Modern smart TVs do not fully shut down when placed in standby mode. They keep their network interfaces active so they can be woken by voice commands, receive firmware updates, or interact with smartphone apps. In this low-power state, the television remains connected to the internet and can keep exchanging data with remote servers.
Microphone recordings continue even offline
One of the most troubling findings involved the microphone. LG OLED TVs sold with voice control capabilities include microphones in the television itself or in the remote control. The investigators discovered that the TVs could record audio input while in standby mode. The television would listen to conversations and other ambient sounds, even after the owner was no longer watching.
Perhaps more surprising was what happened when the TVs were disconnected from the network. The investigation found that the microphone recording continued. Audio files were stored locally on the television's internal storage, and the device waited patiently for the next available connection. Once the TV was reconnected to the internet, the stored audio files were uploaded to remote servers. This is a critical detail because many privacy-conscious users assume that disconnecting a smart TV from the internet is enough to stop surveillance. In this case, it only delayed the transmission.
Standby is now a data collection state
The findings highlight a broader shift in how modern televisions operate. A TV is no longer simply a display attached to a tuner. It is a computer with a full operating system, network stack, microphone, and sometimes even camera. These components sit idle but functional in the living room, and as research continues to show, they are often working even when the screen is dark.
The logs captured by the researchers showed that LG's TVs were not only identifying hardware on the network but also reporting details about the Wi-Fi environment. This can reveal when people are home, whether visitors are present, when smart-home devices are activated, and how often particular rooms are occupied. Combined with device names such as "John's phone" or "living room speaker," the data becomes a behavioral profile that can be used for advertising or sold to data brokers.
While some of this activity may be justified by convenience features like finding a device to cast content, the scale and persistence worried the researchers. There was no simple user-facing toggle that stopped all data transmission, and some features continued running without explicit disclosure.
ACR turns every screen into a tracking tool
Another layer of the investigation focused on Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR. ACR is a technology that captures small snippets of audio and video playing through a television, then uses digital fingerprinting to match those snippets to a database of known content. That lets the TV determine exactly what someone is watching, down to the episode or advertising spot.
Critically, ACR in these LG TVs did not limit itself to content streamed through the company's own smart interface. The researchers found that the televisions recognized content from every connected source. That includes gaming consoles, cable or satellite boxes, Roku or Apple TV devices, Blu-ray players, and any other content coming through HDMI ports. Because the TV sits between the source and the display, it can inspect the signal even when the source has a user interface that is completely unrelated to LG.
ACR is not unique to LG. In a separate investigation around the same time, the reviewers at RTINGS examined how widely ACR is used throughout the smart TV industry. Their study found that almost every major television manufacturer includes some form of ACR to identify viewing behavior and sell that information to advertisers. What differs is how transparent each company is about the practice and how easy it is for consumers to disable it.
For LG owners, the new report adds an important layer of context. Even if someone uses an external streaming player and never touches LG's webOS apps, the television can still monitor what is displayed on the screen. Disabling ACR may require digging into obscure settings menus, and even then, some television models may continue collecting data for other purposes.
Previous LG adware concerns
This is not the first time LG hardware has attracted scrutiny over data collection and advertising. In July, the same team at Gamers Nexus revealed that some LG monitors were automatically installing an app that collected device information and showed pop-up ads for LG products and third-party software, including McAfee antivirus. Users reported seeing intrusive ads appear on their computers without having requested the software.
The publicity from that report resulted in an intervention from Microsoft. Because the app was appearing on Windows systems and behaving like unsolicited adware, Microsoft took steps to address the issue. LG eventually disabled the pop-up ads and said it would stop the practice, but the incident left many users uneasy about the company's attitude toward advertising on hardware that consumers already paid for.
Seen together with the smart TV investigation, the pattern raises questions about how LG and other television makers balance user privacy with advertising revenue. For years, smart TV manufacturers have struggled to make large profits from hardware alone. A growing number of companies now treat television owners as a source of ongoing revenue through ads and viewer data. Every new feature that requires listening from the TV or recognizing viewing content creates another avenue for advertising companies to build profiles on consumers.
What consumers should consider
For consumers, the new findings suggest that smart TV privacy settings alone may not be enough. Many LG televisions include menus for disabling "Live Plus" or personalized ads, but those settings appear to control only a fraction of the data collection observed by the researchers. Voice recognition features can be turned off, but microphone hardware may still be active in some situations. Disconnecting the TV from Wi-Fi and Ethernet stops the remote upload, but as the report shows, a TV that is first used online and later disconnected can hold local data and transmit it when reconnected.
The simplest way to protect a room from TV microphones is also the most reliable: do not connect the smart TV to the internet at all. Without a network connection, the television cannot phone home. Anyone who still wants streaming apps can connect an external media player such as a Chromecast, a gaming console, or a laptop. That shifts the streaming experience to a separate device that the user can control separately from the TV's hidden background operations.
For owners who need the TV connected to the internet, setting up separate firewall rules can help block known LG and advertising servers. This is not always easy in a home router, but tech-savvy users can often create deny rules that prevent the TV from reaching any IP address outside a small allow list of essential services. Network-wide ad blockers may also catch some of the telemetry destinations.
Smart TV manufacturers have become far better at burying tracking practices behind long privacy policies and vague settings screens. The investigation into LG OLED TVs serves as a reminder that a television cannot be assumed to be inactive just because it is dark. Modern TVs listen, watch, and wait, and it may take explicit user action to keep them from turning the living room into a data collection point.
Source:The Verge News