Chinese TV maker Skyworth under fire for excessive data collection that users call spying
- Skyworth apologised and ended its partnership with an analytics firm after a user found one of its smart TVs was collecting data on all connected devices
- The issue comes amid Beijing‘s crackdown on the illegal collection and use of personal data
Chinese television maker Skyworth has issued an apology after a consumer found that his set was quietly collecting a wide range of private data and sending it to a Beijing-based analytics company without his consent.
A network traffic analysis revealed that a Skyworth smart TV scanned for other devices connected to the same local network every 10 minutes and gathered data that included device names, IP addresses, network latency and even the names of other Wi-Fi networks within range, according to a post last week on the Chinese developer forum V2EX.
The data was sent to the Beijing-based firm Gozen Data, the forum user said. Gozen is a data analytics company that specialises in targeted advertising on smart TVs, and it calls itself China‘s first “home marketing company empowered by big data centred on family data”.
The user did not identify himself, and efforts to contact the person received no reply.
However, the post quickly picked up steam, touching a nerve among Chinese consumers and prompting angry comments.