Samsung Clarifies Its Privacy Policy on Voice Recognition Function of Its Smart TVs
Samsung “clarified” its privacy policy “to better explain what actually occurs” when voice recognition functionality is activated on its smart TVs, the company said Tuesday in a blog post. Previously, Samsung’s privacy policy warned users that if spoken words include…
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personal or other sensitive information, “that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party” through the use of voice recognition, the company said. Acknowledging that such statements have “led to confusion,” Samsung in the blog post elaborated by saying that some interactive voice commands “may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service provider (currently, Nuance Communications, Inc.) that converts your interactive voice commands to text and to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you.” Samsung also “may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features,” the company said. “Samsung will collect your interactive voice commands only when you make a specific search request to the Smart TV by clicking the activation button either on the remote control or on your screen and speaking into the microphone on the remote control.” Samsung “takes consumer privacy very seriously and our products are designed with privacy in mind,” the company said. “We employ industry-standard security safeguards and practices, including data encryption, to secure consumers’ personal information and prevent unauthorized collection or use.”