Modern smart televisions can turn what is on screen into a record of what their owners watch. Samsung and LG sets use Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR, to sample the picture, convert frames into digital fingerprints and compare them with a library of content. The technology can track viewing across apps and devices connected to the television.
A 2024 laboratory study by researchers at University College London, UC Davis and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid measured the ACR activity of one Samsung set and one LG set. The LG television captured a screen frame roughly every 10 milliseconds, while the Samsung set did so about twice a second.
The LG set transmitted batches of those fingerprints to partner servers about every 15 seconds. Samsung's set contacted its servers around once a minute.
The traffic appeared while the researchers watched live broadcast television and while they used the screen as an HDMI display for a console or laptop. ACR can therefore reach beyond a television maker's streaming interface to material arriving through HDMI-connected devices.
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Samsung's support pages say its ACR system keeps viewing history, including the programmes watched and how long they were viewed, as well as a device identifier and IP address. Smart TV data can also include technical details such as app use. Samsung says it records a screen fingerprint rather than the video itself.
Both companies present the feature as a matter of user choice. Samsung says owners choose whether to activate ACR during setup. LG says its ACR feature is optional and off by default, requiring users to accept its Viewing Information Agreement before it can be enabled. LG requires a further agreement for personalised advertising.
The information has commercial uses. Data collected by television makers can support personalised advertising. Australian consumer group CHOICE has warned that viewing information may be collected twice, first by a streaming service and again by the television, allowing profiles to build over time around viewers' tastes, habits and advertising exposure.
There is already a warning from the industry's recent past. In 2017, Vizio agreed to pay US$2.2 million to settle charges from the United States Federal Trade Commission and the state of New Jersey that it had collected viewing data from 11 million televisions without telling owners.
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