Why Al Franken Is Worried About Smart TVs

As smart TVs become more ubiquitous in homes around the country, the technology behind what makes them “smart” is coming under greater scrutiny because of privacy concerns.

Recent reports that Samsung Smart TVs collect information from their voice-recognition software and pass that information along to third parties has led to an investigation of Samsung and LG by Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.). Early in February, Franken sent letters to the CEO of Samsung North America and the President of LG asking if the information being collected is necessary for the operation of the voice-recognition features.

“If such communications are unnecessarily captured along with voice commands, is it possible to extract that data before transmission to a third party?” Franken wrote.

Although Franken easily won his re-election bid in November, the Senator is still pushing forward on the issues that are important to him. He is a memeber of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s privacy, technology and the law subcommittee and has been a crusader for consumer privacy rights in electronic media for some time.  READ MORE