An investigation conducted by the Gamers Nexus channel in partnership with Level1Techs and independent analysts revealed that LG's OLED Smart TVs present concerning surveillance features. The analysis used tools such as Wireshark and code disassembly to examine the network traffic of the devices, discovering that the televisions scan the local network looking for unrelated devices, such as smartphones, extracting data such as IP addresses, SSID, signal strength of neighboring Wi-Fi networks, and geographic location.
When the LG TV screen was off, the team discovered that even after disconnecting the device from the home network, it continued recording local voice audio, storing it in internal flash memory. When the connection was restored, the files were sent to the company's servers. Voice capture is not limited to the microphones integrated into the TV or the remote control, and can also extract audio from external peripherals such as webcams connected via USB.
The investigation also exposed critical security flaws in webOS, the operating system of LG televisions, which allow obtaining administrator privileges for remote system access, effectively turning the TV into a clandestine listening device capable of transmitting live audio from the environment. This situation represents a significant risk for professional and business environments.
The televisions also use Automatic Content Recognition technology, which captures six-second clips of what users are viewing, creating a fingerprint transmitted to LG Ad Solutions, the company's advertising platform. Although LG has sold approximately 216 million smart TVs globally, data collection covers approximately 363 million devices in the United States alone, with all this data being used to create more complete user profiles that can be sold to advertisers.
