LG accused of operating 216 million ‘spy TVs’ that record audio even while off

Smart TVs have quietly become advertising platforms, with manufacturers earning recurring revenue from viewing data long after the set leaves the store. A new investigation from YouTube channel Gamers Nexus put that business model under scrutiny this week. LG has now issued a flat denial, saying claims that its televisions record household conversations are not true.

The company told Tom’s Hardware that its TVs process voice data only when the remote’s voice button is pressed and held, or when a wake word such as “Hi LG” is recognized after a user enables Far-Field voice recognition. Outside those cases, LG says the sets do not collect or record ambient conversations.

The denial follows a video published by Gamers Nexus titled 216,000,000 Spy TVs, produced with Level1Techs and two independent security researchers. They tested retail LG OLED sets, including the flagship G5, using packet captures and firmware analysis.

The TV was mapping out everything else in the house

The researchers reported that the televisions scanned local networks for phones, smartwatches, printers, and other connected hardware. The sets also logged the household’s public IP address and internal addresses on the same network. Names, signal strengths, and channels of neighboring Wi-Fi networks were recorded as well.

LG has not disputed that this happens. The company describes network discovery as standard behavior for modern smart TVs, necessary for casting, device control, and general connectivity. However, those features don’t necessarily require users to expect their TV to scan every device on their home network.

Much of LG’s data collection is tied to Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR, which LG Ad Solutions openly markets to advertisers. ACR fingerprints what appears on screen and matches it against a database, including content arriving over HDMI. Gamers Nexus reported that its test set sent roughly 4GB of ACR-related data to LG each month.

It’s important to note that LG settled with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in May, months after the state sued LG and four other major TV manufacturers over ACR data collection. The company admitted no liability in that agreement.

When the researchers declined every optional agreement, the set stopped transmitting ACR data. However, it still contacted LG advertising endpoints and continued scanning for nearby devices, suggesting those functions are part of the TV’s normal operation rather than a security flaw.

The biggest dispute is over the microphone. The researchers said audio was captured while the set appeared to be off, and that the microphone stayed live for 10 to 15 seconds after someone stopped speaking. Speech was also converted to plain text and stored in logs on the television. That is different from proving that LG TVs continuously record background conversations, which is what the company’s denial specifically addresses.

The 216 million figure is LG Ad Solutions’ own marketing number for its global smart TV footprint, not a count of sets proven to be recording anyone. In the US, the division advertises reach across 49 million LG televisions and 363 million secondary devices.

Gamers Nexus also documented LG adding binding arbitration to its US terms of service on July 28, potentially limiting consumers’ ability to pursue claims against the company in court.