Earlier this week, Gamers Nexus, Level1Techs, and independent security researchers published findings suggesting LG's smart TVs are logging and uploading data on users in ways that would make even a paranoid person feel vindicated. Now LG is pushing back, releasing a statement arguing that "some recent media coverage may have contributed to misconceptions about how LG smart TVs work."

In its statement, LG claims its "TVs do not continuously record or transmit users' conversations" and that wake-word detection is processed locally. The word "continuously" is doing an Olympic-level amount of heavy lifting here, given that Gamers Nexus demonstrated an LG TV keeping extensive logs of ambient conversations long after any reasonable person would assume its AI assistant had stopped listening. It's not continuous, you see. It just happens a lot. Constantly, even.

LG also noted that features like "Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), voice recognition, and interest-based advertising are optional" and "not enabled by default." On ACR specifically, the company clarified that it "uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV's internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV." So rest assured: the TV is not watching you. It's merely listening, fingerprinting, and having a think.

What LG did not address is arguably the more interesting part: broader concerns about how much data it collects, who it shares that data with, the potential for bad actors to exploit its features, or the slightly misleading way its privacy options are presented. But hey, the audio processor is definitely not a speaker, so there's that.