SmartTVs have a tendency to collect information without allowing end users to control or even know what is being collected and transmitted. UPDATE: Recently, Samsung’s legal disclaimer about its voice controlled SmartTV had to include a warning (buried in the legal section) that the TV is always relaying what the user’s near the TV are saying, and mentioning that sensitive information should not be said near the TV.
This is an example of the invasiveness of these devices. On top of this, the technology is so new, that there are no regulations concerning what information can & cannot be collected with smart devices, nor how that information is transmitted. The article below from the BBC explains how LG’s SmartTV sends the names of his family members in clear text across the internet— something that most people would be uncomfortable having publicly available. These are just 2 examples of how buying into the convenience of a Smart TV is not worth the cost in terms of privacy.
Besides selling your private information to any and all advertisers or 3rd party entities willing to pay for it, none seem to have anyway to prevent those 3rd parties from transferring it to others (aside from legal clauses — which would be hard to prove & a lengthy process to fix). Nor it there anyway to redact information once released to 3rd parties.
But this is only part of the threat to personal security because it would be trivial for a person with the technical ability or a warrant to obtain any and all information collected by such devices. Smart devices — those with convenience features tied to internet connectivity — are trojan horses for violations of privacy far more invasive and covert than anything else and rely of consumer ignorance to operate unfettered:
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-29826642
The only solution is to either never connect the devices to the internet if you have one, block all traffic if you are networking savvy or not purchase or use them in the first place.
UPDATE: How To Geek published this article about a year later validating this article