Texas blocks Samsung smart TV surveillance over privacy violations

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured a temporary restraining order against Samsung, halting the collection and sharing of Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) data from Texas consumers.

The court found that this data was likely obtained through deceptive practices that violated state laws.

The court's decision comes just weeks after Paxton's office filed lawsuits against five major television manufacturers, namely Samsung, Sony, LG, TCL, and Hisense, over alleged unlawful data collection through ACR software embedded in their smart TVs.

Samsung, one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers and a key player in the US smart TV market, was found to be capturing screenshots from its TVs every 500 milliseconds using ACR. This technology identifies what users are watching by comparing screen captures against a massive content database, enabling targeted advertising across devices. However, the court ruled that Samsung's implementation of ACR constituted digital surveillance that infringed consumers' privacy rights under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA).

According to the temporary restraining order, Samsung's ACR data collection model employed opaque and deceptive practices. The enrollment process used vague terminology and dark patterns to secure user consent, often during the TV's initial setup. Consumers could be enrolled with a single click, yet the privacy disclosures required over 200 additional clicks across multiple menus to access, after enrollment had already occurred.

The court found that Samsung made it virtually impossible for consumers to fully opt out. Users could only “limit the use” of their data rather than halt its collection entirely. Additionally, the court acknowledged concerns that the Chinese Communist Party could access data collected by Samsung, though Samsung is a South Korean firm. This concern echoes a broader geopolitical context, as some of the other manufacturers named in the lawsuits, Hisense and TCL, are China-based companies subject to China's National Security Law, which mandates government access to data.

The court's findings emphasized that Samsung's practices constituted irreparable harm and that the company's surveillance model defaulted to maximum data extraction without meaningful user consent. As a result, Samsung is now barred from collecting, using, transferring, selling, or sharing ACR data from Texas residents for the duration of the order, which expires on January 19, 2026, pending a hearing scheduled for tomorrow.

This action follows a similar order Paxton obtained against Hisense earlier in December. Together, these measures reflect an aggressive strategy by the Texas Attorney General's Office to curb what it describes as mass, unlawful surveillance conducted under the guise of smart entertainment. While this court order applies only to Samsung and only in Texas for now, it could set a precedent for broader regulatory scrutiny across the US.

Consumers elsewhere are advised to review their smart TV settings and disable ACR features, often labeled under terms like “Viewing Information,” “Interactivity,” or “Marketing Preferences.”

Post Update – A Samsung spokesperson has reached out to CyberInsider to clarify that the TRO has been vacated earlier this week, and a hearing is still scheduled for tomorrow.