You bought a TV to watch movies, sports, YouTube, or Netflix — not to have your viewing habits quietly tracked in the background. However, many modern smart TVs collect more data than most people expect.
TVs from brands like Samsung, LG, Sony, TCL, and Hisense may track what you watch, how long you watch it, which apps you open, and sometimes even which devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
Manufacturers say this data helps improve recommendations, app performance, and smart TV features. However, some information may also be shared with advertising and analytics partners to help build personalised advertising profiles and viewer statistics.
Most people never change these privacy settings after turning on the TV for the first time. In many cases, tracking features are enabled automatically during setup through long privacy agreements that almost nobody reads.
The good news is that disabling most of these settings only takes a few minutes — and usually won’t affect Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, gaming features, or the smart functions you actually use every day.
Here’s what your smart TV may actually be collecting in the background, how technologies like ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) work, and which privacy settings you should disable to improve your privacy and reduce tracking.
What Your Smart TV Actually Collects
Most people assume smart TVs only collect basic “usage statistics.” In reality, modern smart TVs can gather far more information than many users expect. Depending on the brand, operating system, and privacy settings enabled, your TV may continuously collect data about your viewing habits, app activity, and even voice interactions.
Here’s the type of information smart TVs commonly collect behind the scenes:
Viewing activity — Your TV may track which channels you watch, which streaming apps you open, and how long you watch specific content. This can include Netflix, YouTube, live TV, cable boxes, and even devices connected through HDMI.
Device fingerprinting — Information such as your device ID, IP address, TV model, firmware version, language settings, and Wi-Fi network details may be collected to identify the device over time.
App usage analytics — Smart TVs can monitor which apps you use most often, how long you stay inside them, and which menus or features you interact with regularly.
Voice assistant data — If voice-control features or microphones are enabled, the TV may listen for wake words and send short audio samples to cloud servers for speech recognition.
Cross-device advertising tracking — Some smart TV platforms attempt to connect TV activity with your smartphone, tablet, or browser activity to create a broader advertising profile across multiple devices.
ACR: The Biggest Privacy Problem on Smart TVs
The technology responsible for much of this tracking is called ACR (Automatic Content Recognition). It works by analysing small visual or audio “fingerprints” from the content displayed on your screen and comparing them against large media databases to identify exactly what you are watching.
What makes ACR particularly controversial is that it does not only work inside streaming apps. It can also recognise content coming from:
- HDMI devices
- Gaming consoles
- Blu-ray players
- Cable and satellite boxes
- Live television broadcasts
That means your TV may still recognise specific movies, TV shows, or games even when the content is not coming directly from a streaming app.
The collected viewing data is commonly used for recommendation systems, viewing statistics, behavioural profiling, and in some cases may also be shared with advertising or analytics companies.
One of the most widely known ACR platforms is Samba TV, although many manufacturers hide similar features behind different names and privacy menus.
How to Disable Tracking on Samsung TVs
Samsung smart TVs running Tizen OS include several privacy and advertising features enabled by default. To reduce tracking as much as possible, you’ll need to disable multiple separate settings inside the privacy menu.
On newer Samsung TVs released after 2022, some menus may appear under Settings → All Settings → General & Privacy instead.
How to Disable Tracking on LG TVs
LG smart TVs running webOS use a tracking system called Live Plus, which functions similarly to ACR technology. LG TVs also include advertising identifiers and recommendation features that should be disabled separately for better privacy.
How to Disable Tracking on Sony / Android TV
Sony TVs running Android TV or Google TV include both Sony privacy settings and Google advertising systems. To reduce tracking as much as possible, it’s best to disable both separately.
How to Disable Tracking on TCL / Roku TVs
Roku OS is often criticised for its heavy focus on advertising analytics and viewer tracking. Many Roku-based TVs include built-in ACR tracking, advertising identifiers, app analytics, and personalised advertising features enabled by default.
Go Further: Block Smart TV Tracking at the Router Level
Even after disabling the visible privacy settings, many smart TVs may still attempt to contact analytics, telemetry, and advertising servers in the background. One of the most effective ways to reduce this is to block those connections directly at the network level using your router or a DNS filtering solution.
One of the most popular tools for this is Pi-hole, a DNS-based ad and tracker blocker that runs locally on a Raspberry Pi or small home server. Once configured, Pi-hole can block many known advertising and tracking domains before your TV is even able to connect to them.
More advanced users often combine Pi-hole with:
- OpenWrt-based routers
- Asus routers running Merlin firmware
- Synology router DNS filtering
- AdGuard Home
- NextDNS custom filtering
If you want a simpler privacy improvement, you can also manually change your TV’s DNS settings to more privacy-focused providers such as:
- 9.9.9.9 — Quad9
- 1.1.1.2 — Cloudflare Malware Protection
These DNS providers will not block every advertising tracker, but they can still improve privacy by blocking known malicious domains, phishing infrastructure, suspicious telemetry endpoints, and some background analytics connections commonly used by smart devices.
I went through this process on an older LG webOS TV, and honestly, the hardest part wasn’t disabling the tracking — it was finding all the settings in the first place. The privacy options were spread across multiple menus, hidden behind separate agreements, advertising sections, and AI-service pages that most users would probably never open.
Disabling Live Plus, personalised advertising, and voice-related tracking took less than five minutes overall. After turning everything off, I noticed no negative impact on the TV’s normal functionality. Netflix, YouTube, Plex, and other streaming apps continued working normally, the interface stayed responsive, and picture quality was completely unaffected.
The main difference was simply that the TV stopped sending as much viewing and advertising data in the background.
If there’s one recommendation worth following, it’s this: review the privacy settings during the initial TV setup. Many tracking features become enabled automatically once you accept personalised recommendations, advertising agreements, or “smart experience” options.
💡 Final Thoughts
Smart TVs have gradually evolved into connected data-collecting devices, not just entertainment systems. The issue is not necessarily that they connect to the internet — it’s that many tracking features are enabled automatically before users fully understand what data is being collected.
The good news is that reducing this tracking usually takes less than ten minutes. Disabling ACR, personalised advertising, voice analytics, and unnecessary telemetry won’t break Netflix or your streaming apps — it simply gives you more control over what your TV shares in the background.
If you buy a new smart TV in the future, checking the privacy settings during setup is one of the smartest things you can do.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
