Smart TV manufacturer ordered to stop collecting viewer data while court case proceeds in Texas

A Texas judge on Wednesday issued a temporary restraining order blocking the smart TV company Hisense from collecting state residents’ viewing habits and other data while a lawsuit filed by the attorney general makes its way through courts.

The first-of-its-kind temporary restraining order bars Hisense from using automated content recognition (ACR) technology to collect and use, share or sell Texans’ data.

The court order follows the Monday filing of lawsuits against five major smart TV manufacturers, including Hisense, for allegedly using ACR to record what consumers view and for deceiving them about the practice.

A spokesperson for Hisense said in a statement that the company “stands by the high quality of its products and respecting customers’ privacy.”

Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, asserting that ACR use breaks Texas law because it gathers individuals’ data without their knowledge or consent.

ACR is a tool companies use to target advertising and has become so lucrative that in 2021 the smart TV manufacturer Vizio derived more profits from ACR data sales than from TV purchases, the lawsuits say.

Hisense’s ACR records every sound and image playing on its TVs every 500 milliseconds, Paxton says, calling the captures an “egregious and unlawful violation of Texans’ privacy.” He emphasized that the country being based in China could expose Texans’ data to the Chinese Communist Party.