LG says the spying claims are “not true.” LG also confirms its TVs scan your local network. Both of those statements came out of the same corporate response, and if you’re wondering how they fit together, congratulations — you’ve found the exact spot where most privacy arguments in consumer tech go to die.
The short version: Gamers Nexus, Level1Techs, and independent security researchers published findings in September 2026 about how LG smart TVs log and upload user data. The investigation claimed 216 million TVs were involved in tracking and audio recording, including while sets were on standby. LG responded through a statement to Tom’s Hardware on 9 September 2026, denying that its TVs constantly log and upload data or record audio in standby, while confirming they do scan local networks. The company also stated that voice data collection is opt-in and requires activation.
I review AI tools for a living, which means I spend an unreasonable amount of time reading privacy policies and comparing them against what software actually does on a packet level. This story pattern is familiar to the point of tedium.
Denial and confirmation in the same breath
Notice the structure of LG’s response. It denies the loudest, most alarming version of the allegation — constant audio recording from a TV that appears to be off. That’s a strong denial and worth taking seriously, because it’s a specific, falsifiable claim.
Then, in the same statement, it confirms network scanning. Not as an admission, just as context. Your television enumerates devices on your home network. That’s not framed as a problem, because from LG’s perspective it isn’t one — it’s a feature for device discovery, casting, and whatever else the smart platform wants to do.
Both things can be true simultaneously. The TV might not be listening to your kitchen arguments while it sits dark on the wall, and it might still build a picture of every phone, laptop, printer, and connected doorbell in your house. One of those is spying in the movie sense. The other is spying in the boring, actually-happening, shows-up-in-an-ad-network sense.
Opt-in is doing a lot of work here
LG’s statement that voice data collection is opt-in and requires activation is the part I’d want to test rather than trust. In AI tooling, “opt-in” covers a wide range of experiences. Sometimes it means a clearly labeled toggle, off by default, that stays off. Sometimes it means a setup wizard where the enable button is large and blue and the decline option is small grey text. Sometimes it means you opted in three firmware updates ago and the new terms carried your consent forward.
I’m not accusing LG of any of those. I’m saying the phrase alone doesn’t settle anything, and anyone who has audited consent flows knows it. The useful follow-up questions are simple:
- What is the default state on a brand-new set, before anyone touches a setting?
- Does a firmware update ever change that state?
- Can you decline and still use the TV’s core functions without nagging?
- Is the network scan tied to voice consent, or does it happen regardless?
That last one matters most, because the network scan is the confirmed behavior. Everything else is contested.
Rooting your TV isn’t the fix
One of the threads that spun out of this on Hacker News argued that rooting your TV is a bad idea. I agree, and not because I have any love for locked-down platforms. Rooting a TV puts you in charge of a device with a large attack surface, no meaningful update path once you’ve broken the vendor chain, and a permanent connection to your home network. You’ve traded a vendor you don’t fully trust for a maintenance job you probably don’t want.
The practical options are less satisfying and more effective. Don’t connect the TV to the internet at all and feed it from a separate streaming box you can replace cheaply. Or put it on a guest VLAN where its network scan finds nothing interesting. Neither requires you to resolve who’s right about the audio recording.
What this tells us about smart device claims generally
The reason I’m writing about a television on a site about AI tools is that the pattern transfers directly. A vendor makes a strong denial of the scariest interpretation, confirms a smaller behavior without comment, and describes data collection as opt-in without describing the opt-in. Every one of those moves shows up in AI product communications.
The lesson isn’t cynicism. It’s that vendor statements and independent measurement answer different questions, and you need both. LG’s denial is a data point. The researchers’ findings are a data point. What your own router logs show when a TV joins your network is the only one you control.
Check the traffic. Trust the traffic.
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