Your TV may be quietly snapping up to 7,200 screenshots of what you watch every hour, according to new lawsuit filings from the Texas attorney general. That figure, based on a claim that some sets capture the screen every 500 milliseconds, echoes earlier federal scrutiny of smart TV tracking in a landmark Federal Trade Commission case against Vizio. The open questions now are whether these new lawsuits will change industry behavior, whether the privacy harms are serious enough for most viewers to care, and whether regulators can actually enforce meaningful limits while consumers try to lock down their own settings.
What ACR Technology Does
The tracking at the center of the Texas cases is built on automatic content recognition, or ACR. In plain terms, ACR software on a smart TV takes frequent screenshots or frame samples of whatever is on the screen, converts those images into a kind of digital fingerprint, then matches that fingerprint against a database to identify the show, movie, ad, or even video game. According to the Official description from the Texas attorney general, some TVs allegedly capture these images every 500 milliseconds, a cadence that works out to roughly 7,200 screenshots per hour of viewing.
Once ACR identifies what is on the screen, the data can be fed into a wider advertising and analytics system. A Company statement about Samsung’s TV business describes a large ad-supported ecosystem built around Samsung TV Plus, which the company says has 88 million monthly active users. That kind of scale helps explain why manufacturers including Samsung would invest in ACR and related ad-tech: every additional data point about what a household watches can make targeted ads more valuable across that audience.
The Recent Texas Lawsuits
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has filed suits against several major TV makers, including Samsung, TCL, and Hisense, accusing them of using ACR to spy on viewers without proper consent. The state’s press release alleges that these companies configured their sets to grab screenshots every 500 milliseconds and transmit data about what Texans watch back to corporate servers. The same filing portrays this as part of a broader pattern of surveillance that, according to the attorney general, violates state privacy and consumer protection laws.
Reporting that walks through the complaints in plain English explains that the alleged tracking is not limited to built-in streaming apps. According to High-quality coverage of the Texas cases, the lawsuits say the ACR systems capture viewing across broadcast and cable channels, over-the-air or OTA signals, and even devices connected through HDMI inputs, such as streaming boxes or game consoles. That cross-input scope means that once ACR is enabled, the TV can potentially log a household’s entire viewing diet, regardless of which device or app is technically delivering the content.
Historical FTC Enforcement
The Texas allegations land against a backdrop of earlier federal enforcement that already framed ACR-based tracking as a consumer protection problem. In a major case involving Vizio, the FTC and New Jersey authorities accused the company of collecting detailed viewing histories from millions of smart TVs without adequate notice or consent. The regulator’s filings described how Vizio’s software ran on about 11 million sets and quietly gathered information about what those TVs were showing.
A narrative summary from the same Regulator explains that Vizio captured second-by-second viewing data and then attached it to demographic information for ad-targeting purposes. That enforcement action ended in a 2.2 million dollar settlement and a court order that restricted how Vizio could collect and use ACR data going forward. The case is Helpful for understanding why regulators say screenshots and frame samples matter: they are not just technical artifacts but the raw material for detailed profiles about what different households watch and when.
Why This Matters for Privacy
The potential privacy impact of ACR grows with every household that brings a connected screen into the living room. Market-research work cited in policy filings notes that Parks Associates found 68 percent of United States households have a smart TV, based on survey methods designed to track device penetration. Those same survey-based findings show how widely streaming media players have spread, and they are Useful for grounding just how many homes could be touched by the kind of ACR systems described in the Texas lawsuits.
At the same time, the scale of ad-supported services gives manufacturers a strong incentive to keep collecting data. Samsung’s own Samsung TV Plus announcement cites 88 million monthly active users, a figure that signals a large audience for targeted advertising linked to viewing behavior. Advocacy archives compiled by Primary sources show that concerns about smart TV data capture go beyond what is on the screen, documenting earlier complaints about voice recognition features and the transmission of voice data to third parties. Taken together, the reach of smart TVs, the economic pull of ad targeting, and the expansion into voice and other signals explain why privacy groups treat ACR as one piece of a broader monitoring ecosystem in the home.
How to Stop the Snooping
For viewers who do not want their TV building a second-by-second record of what they watch, the first line of defense is the settings menu. The Texas attorney general’s ACR allegations focus on software that can usually be disabled, though the exact steps vary by brand. Manufacturer manuals for Samsung, TCL, and Hisense typically include options to turn off viewing information services, interest-based ads, or ACR-style content recognition, and those toggles are often buried under privacy, terms, or support sections of the menu rather than in obvious picture or sound settings.
Because the Texas complaints and explanatory reporting say tracking can extend across HDMI inputs, it also makes sense to review related features such as HDMI-CEC, which lets devices control each other and sometimes share information. Coverage that is Useful for understanding the lawsuits notes that the alleged spying includes HDMI-connected devices, so turning off ACR at the TV level is more protective than simply switching to a different input. Physical steps can help too: if a set includes a built-in camera, a low-tech option like an opaque slider or a piece of tape can block the lens. Whether these measures completely stop data collection is uncertain and may ultimately be tested by the ongoing litigation, but they significantly reduce the most direct forms of smart TV tracking described in the filings.
What Remains Uncertain and Next Steps
Despite the sharp allegations from Texas and the clear precedent set by the Vizio case, there is still thin public evidence about how much manufacturers have changed their practices in response. The ACR-focused consent order in the Vizio matter shows that the FTC can force a company to alter disclosures and data flows, yet the Texas attorney general’s lawsuits suggest that similar patterns may persist across other brands. For now, the gap between what regulators say should happen and what actually occurs inside millions of living rooms remains largely unverified based on available sources.
Future enforcement could come from multiple directions. The FTC’s earlier action against Vizio, detailed in the Helpful for summary, hints at potential federal expansions if new investigations find similar conduct. At the state level, the Texas attorney general’s HDMI-era lawsuits against Samsung, TCL, Hisense, and other manufacturers will be worth watching to see whether courts accept the theory that rapid-fire screenshots amount to unlawful spying. In the meantime, viewers who care about privacy can periodically revisit their TV settings, monitor updates from regulators and advocacy groups, and treat smart screens as connected computers that deserve the same scrutiny as any laptop or phone.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
