Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Tuesday, September 08, 2026

Your LG smart TV may be doing far more than displaying your favorite shows while it sits "off" in the corner of your living room. A new investigation from Gamers Nexus, conducted alongside Level1Techs and independent security researchers, alleges that certain LG OLED televisions continue to scan home networks and capture microphone audio even in standby mode, then upload that data once the set reconnects to the internet.

More

Comments

Admin's note: Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

More from the article ...

... In a 135-minute video breakdown, Gamers Nexus founder Steve Burke detailed tests run on retail LG OLED models, including the flagship G5. Using Wireshark packet captures, the team observed the TVs actively scanning the local network for unrelated hardware such as smartphones and smartwatches belonging to staff who weren't even involved in the testing.

Beyond device discovery, the sets reportedly logged the names and signal strengths of neighboring Wi-Fi networks along with location-adjacent data, effectively mapping the household's entire connected environment.

The more troubling claim concerns audio.

Researchers say the TVs captured clear microphone audio while the screens appeared powered down, and that this behavior persisted even after the Ethernet cables were physically disconnected.

According to the findings, the television stored the recorded audio locally and automatically uploaded it as soon as network connectivity was restored, feeding it into LG's advertising infrastructure through LG Ad Solutions.

LG has previously stated publicly that its televisions "do not collect, record, or store ambient conversations." ...


#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-09-08 01:57 PM | Reply

The following HTML tags are allowed in comments: a href, b, i, p, br, ul, ol, li and blockquote. Others will be stripped out. Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Profanity will be filtered. Abusive conduct is not allowed.

Anyone can join this site and make comments. To post this comment, you must sign it with your Drudge Retort username. If you can't remember your username or password, use the lost password form to request it.
Username:
Password:

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy

Drudge Retort