Your LG Smart TV May Be Watching More Than You Think — What the New Investigation Found and How to Lock It Down

A 135-minute investigation from hardware outlet Gamers Nexus, published in early September 2026, alleges that LG smart TVs and monitors collect far more household data than most owners realize — including scanning other devices on the home Wi-Fi network, tracking viewing habits across every connected source, and in some scenarios capturing microphone audio while the set appears to be off. LG disputed the core claims in an official statement on September 10, calling them "not true" while confirming, in the same statement, that several of the underlying features do exist and are active by default. This piece separates what's independently confirmed from what's disputed, and walks through the exact settings to check if you own one of these sets.

An LG curved 4K OLED television on display
An LG smart TV on display (illustration, not the specific model tested in the investigation). Photo: Maurizio Pesce, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

What the investigation actually found

Gamers Nexus, working with independent security researchers, tested LG TVs and monitors running webOS and published its findings in a video roughly two hours and fifteen minutes long. The headline claims, as summarized by outlets that reviewed the video including TechRadar and CyberInsider:

  • The TVs perform local network scans that identify other devices on the same Wi-Fi network — phones, laptops, smartwatches — and report device names and network information back to LG.
  • Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) analyzes what's being displayed on screen, including content from external sources plugged in over HDMI, not just built-in apps.
  • Under specific conditions, a TV could retain and later transmit captured audio even after being unplugged and reconnected, and — separately — researchers reported unspecified remote-code-execution vulnerabilities to LG through responsible disclosure, meaning the technical details have not been made public while a fix is pending.
  • The investigators cited LG's own advertiser-facing marketing language, which reportedly told potential ad partners the company knows "who's in the LG household" — language LG uses to sell targeted advertising, not a leaked internal document about a specific household.

The investigation also floated a scale estimate — roughly 216 million internet-connected LG TVs worldwide — to illustrate how many households the described data flows could touch if accurate. That figure describes LG's approximate global installed base, as estimated by the investigators; it is not a confirmed count of TVs actively transmitting the disputed data, and neither LG nor an independent auditor has verified it publicly as of this writing.

LG's response, point by point

LG issued a statement on September 10, 2026 disputing the characterization of its practices as covert surveillance. Three specific claims are worth quoting directly because they narrow — rather than deny — what's actually happening:

  • On voice: "LG TVs process voice data only when the voice button on the remote control is pressed and held, or when a wake word such as 'Hi LG' is recognised after the user has activated the Far-Field voice recognition feature." LG says unrecognized wake-word audio is "processed locally on the device and immediately deleted."
  • On advertising data: LG says Automatic Content Recognition is "provided on an opt-in basis" and that viewing data isn't used for ad targeting without consent.
  • On network scanning: LG confirmed the behavior occurs but describes it as a "standard function used for device connectivity" rather than a tracking feature.

Notably, LG's September 10 statement did not address the reported remote-code-execution vulnerabilities or the standby-audio-retention claim first published by security outlet Malwarebytes on September 7. As of this writing, LG has not disclosed a patch timeline for those specific findings, and no CVE identifier has been publicly assigned — standard practice while responsible disclosure is still in progress, but it also means outside researchers can't yet independently verify severity.

Where the disagreement actually lies

Reading LG's statement against the investigation, the two sides agree on more than the headlines suggest. Both confirm: network scanning happens, ACR exists and can read HDMI-connected sources, and voice processing is tied to a wake word. The dispute is narrower than "spying vs. not spying" — it's about defaults, disclosure, and scope. LG frames ACR as opt-in; the investigators found it analyzing content from external devices, which is a broader scope than most owners assume "TV viewing habits" means. LG frames network scanning as connectivity infrastructure; consumer advocates frame the same behavior as building a device inventory of the household that can be sold to advertisers as part of a "household graph." Both descriptions can be technically accurate about the same code while implying very different things about user intent and consent.

A concrete walkthrough: what's on by default out of the box

To make this less abstract, here is what an owner is actually exposed to if they set up a new LG TV using the standard onboarding flow and never revisit settings afterward, based on the menu structure LG's own support documentation and the how-to guides published in response to this investigation both describe:

FeatureDefault state after standard setupWhere it's controlled
Live Plus (ACR)On, unless declined during setupSettings → General → System → Additional Settings → Live Plus
Ad ID / interest-based advertisingOn, tied to the "agree to all" prompt most owners accept to finish setupAdditional Settings → Advertisement; User Agreements screen
Hands-free / Far-Field voiceOff until a user actively enables itSettings → General → AI Service → Voice Recognition
Local network device scanningAlways on, per LG, as a connectivity functionNot user-configurable, per LG's statement

The practical result: two of the four data flows most people would call "tracking" — ACR and ad-ID-linked advertising — are active by default the moment setup finishes, reachable only by visiting at least three separate settings screens across two different menu sections. Voice tracking requires an opt-in step, which is the one area where LG's "not true" pushback is best supported by the evidence in its own statement. Network scanning isn't user-configurable at all according to LG, which means the only way to stop it is at the router, not the TV.

The trade-off nobody puts on the box

None of this exists by accident. ACR and ad-ID tracking subsidize the "connected TV" business model: LG and its competitors increasingly earn more from data and ad revenue on the software side than from the hardware markup, which is part of why smart TVs are cheaper, relative to screen size and panel quality, than they were a decade ago. Turning every one of these features off does not break the TV, but it does remove the personalization and some free ad-supported content recommendations that are part of the pitch. Our judgment: for a shared living-room TV that plays back external sources you don't want profiled — a work laptop, a game console, a cable box — the scanning and ACR behavior described here is a real and underappreciated privacy cost, not a hypothetical one, and it's worth ten minutes of settings work regardless of which side of the LG dispute turns out to be more accurate on the disputed security claims.

Step-by-step: locking down an LG webOS TV

  1. Turn off ACR. Settings → All Settings → General → System → Additional Settings → Live Plus → toggle off. This stops frame-by-frame content analysis of everything displayed on screen.
  2. Limit ad tracking. In Additional Settings → Advertisement, toggle "Limit Ad Tracking" on and select "Reset Ad ID." Then open User Agreements (under Support or Privacy & Terms) and uncheck optional agreements such as "Voice Information" and "Interest-Based & Cross-Device Advertising."
  3. Disable always-listening voice. Settings → General → AI Service → Voice Recognition Settings → turn off "Hands-free Voice Control" (also listed as "Always Ready" on some models).
  4. Isolate the TV on your network. If your router supports a guest network, put the TV on it so it can't see your phones and laptops. If you don't need smart features at all, an external streaming box on an isolated network segment sidesteps the TV's own tracking entirely — network scanning is the one behavior LG says isn't user-configurable on the TV itself.

What this means if you're shopping for a TV right now

This isn't unique to LG — Samsung, Vizio, and Roku TVs have faced similar ACR and data-sharing scrutiny in past years — but the unresolved remote-code-execution report is the part worth watching before a purchase decision, not the ACR debate. A software toggle protects against tracking; it does not protect against an unpatched remote-execution flaw, which by definition can be exploited regardless of what a user has switched off in settings. If you already own an affected model, the settings changes above are worth doing today. If you're buying new, it's reasonable to wait for LG's public response to the security researchers' report specifically — as opposed to the marketing-language dispute, which is unlikely to change the technical facts — before treating the standby-audio question as resolved either way.

This article describes features and settings as documented in the sources below as of September 13, 2026. LG's software and menu structure can change with firmware updates; verify the exact path on your model's current settings menu before assuming a step matches exactly.

Related reading

Tip: Once the TV is locked down, it is worth running the same settings review across every other smart home device on your network, since most of them ship with data sharing switched on by default too. And if the reason your TV audio is always up is late-night viewing, a pair of bluetooth earbuds paired to the set keeps it to yourself. (These are Amazon Associate links — we may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.)

Sources

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