It was in 2015 that the The Daily Beast first reported on Samsung's Smart TV and privacy issues regarding its voice recognition. The report quoted a line of Samsung's privacy policy which stated: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party."
But the articles went viral again in 2016 with many people sharing it on social media.
When the story first broke, Samsung had confirmed that its 'Smart TV', which is equipped with voice recognition, might be listening to every word you say, and has warned customers not to discuss personal information near the TV.
The Daily Beast report also added:
Samsung’s privacy policy notes that in addition to voice commands being transmitted, information about your device, “including device identifiers,” may also be beamed over the Internet to the third-party service, “or to the extent necessary to provide Voice Recognition features to you.”
"You may not be watching, but the telescreen is listening," says one report. Privacy activists are also raising comparisons between the TV and the universe created by George Orwell in his book '1984'.
Following outrage, Samsung had issued a statement then clarifying how the feature works:
If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search. At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV
It was later reported that the third party in question was a company called Nuance Communications, Inc
An article on Cnet in 2015 says, “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 device is plugged in and the Hey, Siri command is enabled). This so-called scandal also affects only a small number of Samsung Smart TV models”.
To do this, head to the Settings menu and select Smart Features. Then scroll down to Voice Recognition and switch it off.