Texas is suing five major television manufacturers for using technology that records what consumers watch and for allegedly deceiving customers about the practice.

Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday filed suits against Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL Technology Group Corporation for using what is known as automated content recognition (ACR) technology to capture individuals’ viewing habits in real time.

Paxton, who is suing under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, says the well-known technology violates Texas law because of how it collects consumer data without the user’s knowledge or consent. ACR is used to recommend content to viewers, but can also be a tool to serve personalized ads or collect and sell user data in bulk.

“When families buy a television, they don’t expect it to spy on them,” the lawsuits say. “They don’t expect their viewing habits [to be] packaged and auctioned to advertisers.”

The five companies “deceptively” direct consumers to turn ACR on and bury “any explanation of

what that means in dense legal jargon that few will read or understand,” the lawsuits say, calling disclosures “hidden, vague, and misleading.”

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. households are equipped with a smart TV using ACR, the lawsuits say. 

ACR has been a target of lawmakers in the past. In 2017, the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney

General fined Vizio $2.2 million for using ACR to capture data on 11 million consumers without their knowledge or consent.

By 2021, the lawsuits say, Vizio reported that more of its profits stemmed from selling consumer data collected through ACR to advertisers than from selling TVs.

ACR can collect data on things like watched YouTube videos, security or doorbell camera streams, and video or photos sent via Apple AirPlay or Google Cast, the lawsuits say. It can collect data from devices like personal laptops that are connected to TVs by HDMI.

ACR can capture data even when a TV is offline, and can be sent to the company when the TV is reconnected to the internet, including for firmware updates, the lawsuits say. 

ACR data also is combined with metadata and identifiers, the lawsuits say, so that ACR can infer “highly personal attributes pertaining to consumers’ race, sex, or religious and political beliefs, all of which fall under sensitive personal data categories under Texas’ state privacy law and nearly every other privacy regime both nationally and internationally.”

Hisense and TCL’sThe five companies’ ties to China are especially disturbing, Paxton said in a press release, citing the potential for data harvesting by the Chinese government.

Spokespersons for Hisense and LG said their companies do not comment on pending legal matters. None of the other TV manufacturers immediately responded to a request for comment.