Your Smart TV Might Be Watching You—How to Check Your TV for Cameras
1 min read
Summary
Smart TVs are increasingly common but consumers are unaware they may have built in cameras and microphones that could be spying on them.
Manufacturers often don’t disclose the presence of the cameras, either in the TV itself or in the accompanying manual or packaging.
They should be visibly marked when in use, but you can also find them by looking for a pinhole in the top bezel, or a pop-up camera on older TVs, or by navigating to camera settings in the menu.
If you discover a camera, disable any features you didn’t activate, and cover the camera lens with tape.
Even if there is no camera, your TV may be monitoring you through Automatic Content Recognition which scans what you are watching and offers content recommendations.
This can be turned off in the TV’s settings, together with voice recognition or any other features you don’t want activated.
