Bounty hunter finds Samsung TVs record audio and screenshots for ads

Reverse engineer log4j found that Tizen OS on a 2025 Samsung TV collects audio categories, screenshots, cross-device ad IDs and runs a region-specific neural network tracking viewing behavior. TVs without microphones reportedly seek connected devices with mics to record audio.

• Telemetry includes screenshots, audio categories and cross-device ad ID
• A region-specific CNN tracks watched videos and skipped ads
• TVs without mics look for soundbars and Bluetooth devices to record audio
• OpenAI banned the researcher for using its tools