LG Rejects Spy TV Report as 'Not True' - Here Are the Settings to Turn Off Anyway

LG says the viral claim that its smart TVs secretly listen in on your living room is not true.

The denial answers a two-hour Gamers Nexus investigation, published on 6 September 2026, that accused LG of running "216,000,000 spy TVs".

LG's statement, sent to Tom's Hardware on 9 September, rejects the eavesdropping claim but confirms one of the others.

Whoever turns out to be right, the settings further down take an LG owner about five minutes.

What the Investigation Claimed

Gamers Nexus worked with Wendell Wilson of Level1Techs and independent security researchers, capturing the network traffic of retail LG TVs and pulling apart their webOS firmware. These are the claims that made the headlines:

• Network scanning. The TV mapped devices on the home network, from phones and PCs to smartwatches, and noted nearby Wi-Fi networks and their signal strength.
• Listening in standby. The microphone picked up clean audio while the screen looked switched off, and speech turned up as plain-text transcripts in the TV's logs.
• Offline storage. Audio captured with the network cable pulled was kept and uploaded once the TV was back online.
• Content recognition. ACR (automatic content recognition) fingerprinted what was on screen, including consoles and other HDMI devices, with data going to LG Ad Solutions, the company's advertising arm.
• Security holes. The team says it found remote code execution flaws in webOS and is holding back the details while LG fixes them.

The 216 million figure is not a count of TVs caught doing anything. It is the number of LG smart TVs worldwide that LG Ad Solutions says its advertising business can reach.

What LG Says, and What It Confirms

LG says its TVs process voice data only "when the voice button on the remote control is pressed and held, or when a wake word such as 'Hi LG' is recognized after the user has activated the Far-Field voice recognition feature." Wake-word listening happens on the TV itself, and LG says nothing reaches its servers if the phrase is not heard.

LG does not dispute the network scanning. It calls finding other devices on the same network "a standard function commonly provided by smart TVs and smart home devices", and it is how features such as screen sharing find your phone.

ACR, according to LG, is opt-in and not used for advertising unless you accepted the optional agreement. That matches what LG promised Texas in May 2026, when it settled a state lawsuit over ACR by agreeing to pop-up disclosures and simple opt-outs.

What the statement leaves out is just as telling. LG did not address the plain-text transcripts or the security flaws.

Where the Report Is on Shakier Ground

Not every demo is as damning as the thumbnail. One detailed critique, from a viewer who supports the channel, points out that several recording tests ran on a TV the team had already rooted, and that encrypted traffic shows where data goes without showing what is inside it.

The flaws are the part that matters either way. If an attacker can reach the same microphone controls without rooting the set first, LG's policies stop being the question, so install firmware updates the day they appear.

The Settings to Switch Off on an LG TV

LG moves these menus around between model years, so if a path does not match yours, look for the same name one level up or down.

• Live Plus - Settings > All Settings > General > System > Additional Settings. This is LG's name for ACR, so turn it off first.
• User Agreements - under Support > Privacy & Terms, or under System on some models. Untick Viewing Information, Voice Information and interest-based advertising.
• Advertisement - in the same Additional Settings menu as Live Plus. Turn on Limit AD Tracking and reset the ad ID.
• Hands-free voice - General > AI Service > Voice Recognition Settings. Switch it off, and by LG's own account the microphone only works while you hold the button on the remote.
• Always Ready - under General, where your model has it. Turning it off makes standby behave more like off.

The Most Private Option Is Taking the TV Offline

The researchers' own advice is the bluntest: disconnect the TV from the internet and let a separate streaming box run the apps. A box comes with its own data policies, but it cannot see what your console is sending down another HDMI cable.

On an Android TV or Google TV box, VLC for Android plays your own files and network shares with no account. Our guide to the best video player for Android TV covers the alternatives.

If live channels are the reason your TV is online, the best free IPTV players for M3U playlists run on the same boxes.

Your PC deserves the same five minutes, and our Windows 10 and 11 privacy settings guide walks through them.

Quick questions

Switch off Live Plus today, and install LG's updates the day they land.

Get VLC for Android if you are moving your viewing to a streaming box, or tell us what your LG TV had switched on when you checked.