In December 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed lawsuits against five global smart TV manufacturers—Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL—alleging unlawful collection of personal data through Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology. The lawsuits claim these companies tracked users’ viewing habits without consent and sold the data for targeted advertising, raising privacy concerns, according to medianama.com.
Paxton’s complaints focus on ACR technology, which captures frames or audio from TV content, creates a digital fingerprint, and matches it against a database of known content such as movies and ads. The lawsuits argue that this process compromises user privacy by sharing sensitive information with third parties. The filings also highlight that Hisense and TCL are Chinese companies, with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party, while Sony, Samsung, and LG are based in Japan and South Korea respectively, per medianama.com.
The case underscores growing scrutiny of data privacy in smart devices, especially as ACR technology enables detailed tracking of consumer behavior. Similar regulatory actions have targeted tech companies for unauthorized data collection. The Texas lawsuits join a broader trend of legal challenges addressing how smart TV makers monetize user data and the risks posed by cross-border data flows, as noted by medianama.com.
The lawsuits remain active as of June 2026, with no public resolution announced. Texas AG Paxton’s office continues to pursue the case, emphasizing consumer privacy protections under state law, according to medianama.com.