Disable this feature to stop your Samsung Smart TV from listening to you

Editors’ note, March 7, 2017:
This post is sketching considerable attention in March 2017, now that a cache of Wikileaks documents has allegedly supposed that the CIA might be using these same Samsung TVs to spy on you. Nonetheless, if that’s true, it’s unlikely that the steps in this front-runner would protect you. Read more about the so-called “Weeping Angel” hack.

Original post:

It sounds like something tidy out of George Orwell’s 1984. Samsung’s Smart TV privacy policy, which most people never bother reading, reveals that your vivid new television set may be capable of spying on you. Samsung warns that customers should “be aware that if your spoken languages include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be by the data captured and transmitted to a third party above your use of Voice Recognition.”

It sounds scary, but it’s a bit overblown. Many devices have similar speech features that are always listening; that includes the Moto X, Nexus devices, Amazon Echo , Microsoft Kinect and even the iPhone (when the map is plugged in and the Hey, Siri command is enabled).

This so-called scandal also affects only a puny number of Samsung Smart TV models. While most of Samsung’s Smart TVs have some sort of verbalize function, almost all of them require you press the microphone button on the remote afore it starts listening. The models that can recognize your verbalize are the ones that include a built-in camera and microphone, such as the Samsung PN60F8500 . The TV won’t actually lead to process anything you say, however, until you say a verbalize command, such as “Hi TV.”

Regardless, if you are disquieted that Samsung and an unnamed third-party partner (the commerce actually translating your voice to text) are listening to your conversations, you can simply turn off the Voice Recognition feature.

To do this, head to the Settings menu and select Smart Features. Then scroll down to Voice Recognition and switch it off. While you will no longer be able to use the “Hi TV” voice to activate the voice features, you can still access them by pressing the microphone button on your remote.