MANILA, Philippines (Sep 2026) – Reports about smart TVs secretly recording background chatter have left many Pinoy home owners concerned about household privacy, but your LG smart TV is not eavesdropping on ambient conversations.
Following recent reports and online discussions surrounding smart TV voice privacy, LG Electronics clarified that its televisions process audio data only when explicitly activated by the user.
How voice features actually work
According to LG, voice data is processed only when a user presses and holds the dedicated voice button on the remote control, or when the “Hi LG” wake word is detected after manually enabling the Far-Field voice recognition feature. Outside of these actions, ambient conversations in the room are neither recorded nor transmitted.
Even when the TV is in standby mode, local audio processing occurs strictly on the physical device to listen for the specific wake word. If the wake word is not recognized, the temporary audio sample is immediately deleted on the TV itself and never sent to external servers.
Full control over your settings and data
Beyond voice recognition, questions were raised regarding local network scanning and Automatic Content Recognition (ACR). LG explained that scanning for nearby devices on the same network is a standard smart home function designed to help connect devices and share content easily.
Meanwhile, features like ACR and interest-based advertising operate strictly on an opt-in basis. Pinoy users must provide explicit consent for each service during setup or in the menu. If consent is not given, ACR data is not used for advertising purposes, and users can toggle these privacy choices on or off at any time directly through their TV settings.
