AG Paxton issues consumer alert for smart TVs suspected of spying on Texans

AUSTIN, Texas (KVIA) -- Attorney General Ken Paxton is issuing a consumer alert for smart televisions. Paxton says the TVs are spying on Texans. Earlier this week, Paxton sued five major TV companies for alleged spying. He has since secured a temporary restraining order against one of the companies, Hisense.

“I’d urge Texans TV shopping for Christmas to avoid purchasing a television that allows Big Tech to illegally collect your data,” said Attorney General Paxton. “All across Texas, there are smart TVs acting as an uninvited, invisible digital invaders. It's vital that all Texans know that your TV may be monitoring and recording everything that happens on your screen.”

Paxton also advises all Texans to take the following steps to turn off certain data collection settings on their TVs:

• Press the Home button on your remote control to access the main menu.
• Navigate to and select Settings.
• In settings, find and select General, System or Intelligence settings from the list of options.
• Once new options appear, find and select Privacy, Terms & Conditions, Privacy Choices or a similar option.
• Inside the privacy settings, look for options called Smart TV Experience, Viewing Information Services, or similar.
• Toggle these options OFF to disable ACR.
• There may be additional options in privacy settings to disable personalized advertising. These will often be called Personalized Ads, Interest-Based Advertising, Content Recommendation or similar.
• Some smart TVs might also have DO NOT SELL MY PERSONAL DATA options.

ORIGINAL STORY (December 15, 2025): Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing five television manufacturers he says have been "spying on Texans by secretly recording what consumers watch in their own homes."

Paxton's office says that Sony, Samsung, LG, and Hisense and TCL Technology Group Corporation are all listed in the lawsuit. Paxton's office singled out Hisense and TCL, both based in China, specifically for ties with China that pose serious concerns about consumer data harvesting.

"These companies have been unlawfully collecting personal data through Automated Content Recognition ('ACR') technology," Paxton's office explained. "ACR in its simplest terms is an uninvited, invisible digital invader. This software can capture screenshots of a user’s television display every 500 milliseconds, monitor viewing activity in real time, and transmit that information back to the company without the user’s knowledge or consent. The companies then sell that consumer information to target ads across platforms for a profit. This technology puts users’ privacy and sensitive information, such as passwords, bank information, and other personal information at risk."