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.