Your LG TV Might Still Be Listening to You—Even When It Looks Like It’s Off

In brief

• Gamers Nexus found LG TV sets still scan a household's entire Wi-Fi network and can capture microphone audio while appearing off or unplugged from the internet.
• LG settled with Texas regulators in May, agreeing to stop collecting viewing data without informed consent.
• Separate security researchers found unpatched remote-access bugs and residential-proxy code, software that quietly reroutes strangers' internet traffic through a buyer's home connection.

What does an LG smart TV do when nobody’s watching? Digital media company and popular YouTube channel Gamers Nexus spent more than 500 hours and about $70,000 finding out. The answer, per a new investigation, is a lot more than advertised.

Working with hardware reviewer Level1Techs and three independent security researchers, the team found LG's sets scanning a home's entire Wi-Fi network using UPnP, a protocol that lets devices find and talk to each other automatically, mapping every phone, laptop, and smart device connected to it.

In one test, they pulled clean microphone audio off a TV with a dark screen, then did it again after yanking the set off the internet entirely. LG signed a privacy settlement with Texas regulators four months before any of this ran.