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Your smart TV can track what you watch.

Your TV can recognize what is on its own screen, including whatever comes in over HDMI. What the setting is called on each brand, and where to find it.

Joel Folgner

Joel Folgner

— 10 min read
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A hand holding a TV remote pointed at a wall-mounted television, with a home router on the shelf beside it.
Photo: Dražen Nešić / Unsplash

Your television can recognize what's playing on its own screen. On several major brands that includes whatever arrives over HDMI, so the cable box and the game console are covered too. Whether yours is doing it right now comes down to one setting. There is no standard name for it and no standard place to find it.

The name on your TV is not the name in the news

The technology is automatic content recognition, ACR for short. What the setting is called depends on the television.

Your TV What to look for
SamsungViewing Information Services
LGViewing Information (it feeds a feature named Live Plus)
VizioViewing Data
Roku TV, including Roku-powered TCL, Hisense, Philips and onn setsAutomatic Content Recognition (ACR); on older software, Use Info from TV Inputs
Sony BRAVIASamba Interactive TV (run by an outside company, Samba TV)
Hisense sets on VIDAAEnhanced Viewing
Amazon Fire TVNo ACR control; separate Fire TV privacy settings

Samsung described the mechanism to advertisers in a 2022 Samsung Ads guide. In its own words, "Our proprietary ACR technology takes glass-level screenshots every 500 milliseconds on our opted-in Samsung TVs, converts them into 'unique patterns,' and compares these visual snapshots against others in the matching server." A diagram in the same guide is labeled "Image captured every 500ms."

That's Samsung's sampling rate, not an industry standard. The researchers below note that LG's own documentation puts its sets at every 10 milliseconds.

The television isn't sending a normal image file of the screen. It turns the sample into a fingerprint and sends that for matching. Sony's support page says so for the Samba system on its sets. "No image from the TV screen is captured and sent from your BRAVIA TV." The comparison the researchers use is Shazam. A short fingerprint travels, gets matched against a large library, and comes back with a name. Roku's page adds that a fingerprint with no match in its catalog comes back as nothing, so a home video is not recognized as anything.

HDMI is not a way around it

Close-up of the HDMI IN ports on the back edge of a television.

Researchers from University College London, UC Davis and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid put Samsung and LG sets in a lab and watched the network traffic across six ways of using a television.

They found ACR traffic while the sets showed linear broadcast, and while the sets were being used as external displays over HDMI. Plugging in a laptop or a game console doesn't turn the television into a dumb monitor.

They didn't find ACR traffic while third-party apps such as Netflix and YouTube were running on the tested sets. In the United States, they did see it during the manufacturers' own free channels, Samsung TV Plus and LG Channels, where the UK sets showed none.

They also separated how often the screen gets sampled from how often anything leaves the house. On their sets, LG contacted its ACR servers about every fifteen seconds and Samsung about once a minute. The samples pile up locally and travel in batches.

Where the data goes

Vizio's current Viewing Data policy says the company licenses that data "to advertisers, ad agencies, analytics companies, media companies, and other ad technology companies." The same policy says it may be combined with material bought elsewhere: "demographic data, smartphone location, web history, and purchasing history."

In 2017 the FTC and New Jersey settled with Vizio over viewing data taken from 11 million televisions, and the complaint describes demographics attached to the viewing history:

  • Sex
  • Age
  • Income
  • Marital status
  • Household size
  • Education level
  • Home ownership
  • Household value

Vizio paid $2.2 million and agreed to ask permission going forward. The feature had been called Smart Interactivity, and Vizio told buyers it "enables program offers and suggestions."

Walmart owns Vizio now. The policy offers you "an additional choice about whether Walmart can link your Viewing Data to the Walmart account logged in to those devices."

Why TV makers want this data

A good 65-inch television costs less than the phone in your pocket now, and the reason is written in the makers' own account books.

In the spring of 2024, Vizio's Device business took in $267.9 million and returned $900,000 in gross profit. Its Platform+ business, which sells advertising and viewing data, took in $169.4 million and returned $98.6 million. Across the first half of that year, Device gross profit was negative $6.3 million. Device covers sound bars as well as televisions, and Platform+ covers more than advertising, so neither number is a clean read on TVs alone.

Roku's is cleaner. For all of 2025, Devices took in $592 million at a gross margin of negative 14 percent. Platform took in $4.145 billion at 52 percent. Roku told investors to expect device margins in the negative mid-teens again in 2026.

A television can keep earning after it leaves the store. Those platform businesses are wider than advertising, and ACR is one of the systems feeding them what happens on the screen.

Texas sued five TV makers

On December 15, 2025, Texas sued Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL over ACR under the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Two days later a court issued a temporary restraining order against Hisense, barring it from collecting or sharing ACR data about Texans while the case runs.

Samsung reached an agreement with the state on February 26, 2026, promising not to collect ACR viewing data from Texans without express consent and to make its disclosures clear and conspicuous. LG followed on May 11, agreeing to a pop-up disclosure and a clear way to opt out. Neither agreement, as the attorney general described it, carries a dollar figure.

Texas said on May 11 that its cases against Sony, Hisense and TCL remained ongoing. None of the allegations against those three has been decided on the merits. The Hisense restraining order is a court order, but it settles nothing about whether the claims are true.

The companies have an answer

Samsung's advertiser guide describes the feature as opt-in and reversible. "If a user does not opt in to these services, or if they subsequently withdraw their consent, their use of the Smart TV is not affected." Vizio's policy says each television gets a notice and a choice before any Viewing Data is collected, and that turning it off will not affect how the set performs. Sony says Samba Interactive TV runs only if you accept Samba TV's terms. Roku's own ACR policy describes collection starting "when you enable Smart TV Experience during device set up."

LG spells out the split. Its TVs began showing a User Agreements screen after the company updated its Terms of Use on August 28, 2026, and LG's support page says the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy are required to use smart services such as Netflix and YouTube, while "all other agreements are optional." Its own FAQ is more direct. "Agreements related to viewing information, voice features, and personalized ads are optional and are not required to use basic smart services." You can change any of them later under Settings, then Privacy & Terms, then User Agreements.

Consumer Reports tested 2025 sets and found LG's viewing agreements off by default until accepted, and Sony's Bravia data options off by default too.

The researchers checked the other half of the promise. After opting out on their Samsung and LG sets, they found "a complete absence of communication with any previously identified ACR domains." The controls did what they said.

So there is a decent chance the setting on your television is already off, but no way to know without looking. The permission gets collected during setup, in a stack of agreements, alongside the ones you have to accept to use the apps at all.

"I don't care if somebody knows I watch football"

What you watch is not the whole picture.

Vizio's policy describes what makes viewing history valuable, and it's more specific than a hypothetical. A data partner can identify another device sharing the television's IP address, a phone with location turned on, and check whether that phone later turned up at a store. The viewing history becomes one more signal attached to a household that already has a file with a data broker.

Turning it off

A hand holding a television remote, pointed at a TV showing a menu screen in the background.

Menus move between model years and software updates, so look for the name of the control rather than the exact path. If yours doesn't match, search your model number plus the name.

Samsung. Settings, then All Settings, then General & Privacy, then Terms & Privacy. Uncheck Viewing Information Services. On many current models the same control also appears under Privacy Choices, in the same General & Privacy area. Older Samsung sets may put the control under Terms and Policy, or use older SyncPlus or Interactive Marketing wording for the same choices.

LG. Settings, then All Settings, then Support, then Privacy & Terms, then User Agreements. Decline Viewing Information. On older webOS sets, User Agreements may sit under General, or under About This TV.

Vizio. All Settings, then Privacy & Legal, then Viewing Data. Older sets use All Settings, then Admin & Privacy. Vizio publishes both paths, so try the other one if the first is missing.

Roku, including Roku-powered TCL, Hisense, Philips and onn sets. Settings, then Privacy, then Smart TV Experience. On current software, uncheck Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) and Viewing Information Disclosure. On older software the same control is a single line called Use Info from TV Inputs. Roku's More Ways to Watch suggestions run on this technology, so turning it off turns those off too.

Sony. Look for Samba Interactive TV by name. Sony's own pages put it under System Preferences on many models, including Google TV sets. Consumer Reports found it just below Privacy in All Settings on 2025 models. Sony itself says the location varies by model.

Hisense sets running VIDAA, Hisense's own system. Hisense calls its service Enhanced Viewing, and its own privacy notice describes it as an optional service. Its manuals say the feature runs only after you choose Yes, Enable Enhanced Viewing during setup. The control sits in a Privacy or Legal section under Settings, then System or Support, and the wording moves between model years, so on this brand especially, search your model number.

Amazon Fire TV sets. Different situation. Amazon told Consumer Reports that Fire TV doesn't use ACR and doesn't read a cable box or other non-Amazon device plugged into the set. It does collect what you watch over an antenna and through apps. Amazon's own privacy FAQ names the controls, all under Settings, then Preferences, then Privacy Settings: Device Usage Data, Collect App Usage Data, Interest-based Ads, and on Fire TV televisions, Over-the-air Viewing Data. Newer software adds Manage Sharing From Apps, where Share App Viewing and Content Info stops supported apps sending viewing information to Amazon. Consumer Reports found the toggles on by default.

Vizio's control goes further than the others. Turning Viewing Data off "will trigger the deletion of historical logs of Viewing Data for the VIZIO OS product from VIZIO's database," and a factory reset returns the setting to off rather than on. Roku's policy says the opposite about history. Data collected while the feature was on "will be retained by Roku and may still be shared with third parties" after you turn it off.

What the control stops is the panel reading the screen. It isn't an off switch for advertising, and Vizio says as much in its own policy: after you turn Viewing Data off, "for a period of time you may continue to see tailored ads on other devices that were targeted based on Viewing Data that was shared before you turned off collection." What you give up going forward is recommendations and ad targeting built on what the set saw.

What it does not turn off

Netflix still knows what you watch on Netflix. Turning off ACR stops the television from reading the screen but does nothing to the apps, which keep their own records.

The platform account keeps a log too. Vizio says it plainly: disabling Viewing Data "will not, however, affect or limit Activity Data collection," which is the record of what you open and search in the TV's own menus. On a Google TV set, Google's terms are a separate agreement you can't decline and still have a smart TV, and Google says the Google TV platform itself doesn't run ACR, though the brand on the front may.

Your internet provider still sees the traffic leaving the house. And the television is not the only appliance with a second job. Your router is watching motion and your car is grading your driving on the same idea.

A streaming stick plugged into a television that never joins wifi keeps the TV maker's ACR out of it. The stick then has its own account, its own telemetry and its own advertising ID. You will have at least moved the tracking to a company you picked.

What to do today

Find the control on your set and look at it before you decide anything. It may already be off. If it's on, turn it off, then check it again after the next factory reset.

Then read the price tag on your next set differently. The same reading works on a laptop.

Sources

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