The streaming era has entered its maturity, where individuals have fun binge-watching their beloved shows and movies on various VOD platforms. The growth of these services has created a fledgling industry of streaming devices that are complements to TVs that are getting smarter with each model.
On the surface, this glut of new technology appears to be a milestone in entertainment. There’s is no point in underplaying the undeniable impact streaming has had on the video-on-demand industry. Underneath the utility though, lies a threat to our data security.
Privacy Implications of Streaming
Internet watchdogs like PrivacyCircuit have highlighted that streaming services rely on cutting-edge technology to collect their user’s data and capture their behavior to show more relevant content. Therefore, they have been stepping into our private data.
Privacy software such as a VPN can conceal your IP and internet traffic from third parties. Moreover, it can help you circumvent geo-restrictions on content that is blocked in your location. However, there are hardware issues against user privacy as well.
Smart devices for streaming, such as Smart TV, Roku, Firestick, Google TV, and Apple TV, also capture the viewing data of the users, which raises privacy issues among its users. Moreover, they come with voice recognition software and microphones that can even eavesdrop on you.
However, to watch anonymously and securely over these streaming services, you need to change the privacy settings and check out all the latest software on streaming devices.
Netflix
Netflix is one of the leading streaming services with a vast library of movies, TV shows, documentaries, and award-winning originals. Netflix uses the natural language processing (NLP) algorithm of AI to know its users’ viewing habits and recommend content based on viewers’ preferences.
For this purpose, it automatically collects your data and tracks your activity on the service, such as titles you have watched, their duration, the device you have used for streaming, etc. It also grabs information regarding your network and devices and the unique IP address of your devices to show you the content library according to your current locality.
For a private Netflix streaming experience, you must clear your browsing history every few weeks. In this way, you can restrict Netflix from collecting your search data.
Hulu
Hulu is recognized worldwide as a top-tier streaming service that offers an extensive content catalog. Like Netflix, Hulu also collects and shares the data of its users for tailoring advertisements and measuring their effectiveness. They also track your online activities, including the website you browse, ads you view, interactions with other service providers, etc.
Your information is sold to advertisers and third-party users by Hulu in the occurrence of any mergers, bankruptcy, etc. You can stop Hulu from selling your personal data to advertisers by enabling the opt-out option as per California privacy rights.
Hulu also collects data based on the user’s location. The only method to opt-out of this is to disable location services through your device’s local settings, but this can affect the availability of location-based programming.
Amazon Fire TV and Stick
Watching your favorite prime video on Fire Stick TV gives a joyful experience, but at the same time, you might feel frustrated because of the interest-based ads appearing on your TV screens.
Amazon retains its customers by showing them products relevant to the choices for which they track their activities, including their likes & dislikes, the most viewed titles or movies, the total hours spent watching the TV, Alexa search requests, etc.
As per Amazon’s privacy policy, they do not provide your personal information to advertisers or to third-party sites that display their interest-based ads. Moreover, you can stop your data from being used for advertising by disabling the personalized ads option.
On the other hand, Amazon Fire TV also collects an immense amount of data on your device usage, app usage, and over-the-air viewing data. However, you can limit device data collection and app data collection through the help of Fire TV’s privacy menu.
Smart TV
Webcams and microphones built into smart TVs pose security risks to your data. Through your webcam, malicious attackers can spy on you. A CNN report claimed that Samsung smart TVs were listening to their users and sending their voice commands to outside parties.
Almost every Smart TV makes recommendations for and displays relevant adverts to its customers based on their preferences using an automated content recognition (ACR) engine. In addition, it records the types of episodes and movies you enjoy and how long you spend viewing them daily.
To prevent data collection, you can disable the ACR feature by going to the settings menu on your smart TV. In addition, you can turn off Wifi and turn your smart TV into a dumb TV by turning off smart settings. Also, check for software updates on your smart TV to prevent data breaches, hacks, and cyber attacks.
Roku
Roku is a streaming device through which you can watch the latest content on your preferred on-demand service. Roku users also encountered security and privacy issues, but it is clearly stated in Roku’s privacy policy that the company would gather “your search history, audio in case of using the voice-enabled feature, queries searched, channels accessed, interactions with content and advertisements, etc.
Roku also claims that it shares data with advertisers, “including ads viewed by users within Roku’s Channels and Third-Party Channels, as well as ads displayed in content that users view through your Roku TV’s antenna and connected devices.” You can stop Roku from personalizing ads and sharing viewing data from streaming channels by clicking on the limit ad tracking from Roku’s main setting and privacy menu.
Google Chromecast with Google TV
Google offers a single privacy statement that applies to all of the company’s products and lists the information it gathers to sell advertising or suggest other material, such as YouTube videos, to users.
Search terms, videos viewed, interactions with content and ads, voice and audio information when using audio features, purchase activity, contacts with whom you communicate or share content, and activity on third-party websites and apps that use our services are just a few examples of the information that is gathered.
According to Google, the Google Chromecast platform doesn’t carry out ACR or keep track of the precise content users are watching. So you can seamlessly watch classic shows and movies on Google TV without the fear of being tracked online.
Apple TV
Apple TV is one of the streaming devices that offers more privacy and allows you to personalize and adjust security settings in a simple way. Apple TV does collect its customers’ information and tracks users’ information online, but you can configure Apple TV to limit access to data such as location and tracking. In addition, you can select which apps can access your photos, Bluetooth devices, or HomeKit devices.
Apple has the option “Allow apps to ask permission to track you,” which can be set on or off according to your preference. There are additional options available such as “Analytics And Improvements” and “Improve Siri & Dictation,” that can be turned off if you want to restrict Apple from tracking your analytics and using your data to improve Siri or dictation.
Ending Note!
Secure and private streaming will always be the foremost choice of viewers, significantly when the rate of cybercrime is increasing at an alarming rate. No matter how much we love streaming, we care more about the privacy and security of our personal data; therefore, you need to ensure that you’re streaming like one’s watching.
