Samsung says its eavesdropping TV works like Siri

The company said its privacy policy had been misinterpreted. Samsung (SSNLF) says its voice recognition technology works similarly to Apple's (AAPL, Tech30) Siri, Google (GOOG) Now, Microsoft's (MSFT, Tech30) Cortana or any other speech-to-text service.

"Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition," Samsung had posted in its privacy statement for its SmartTVs.

The company acknowledged that the wording "led to confusion," so it changed the privacy policy on Tuesday "to better explain what actually occurs."

Samsung notes that voice recognition on its SmartTVs happens two ways: through the TV and through the remote control.

Although the TV is constantly "listening" to your voice, it is waiting for you to say a set of predetermined commands, including "change the channel" and "increase the volume." Samsung said that kind of voice data isn't stored anywhere, and it's not transmitted over the Internet.

Through the remote, people can press a button to activate a Siri-like "assistant" that responds to voice commands. You can say, for example, "recommend a good Sci-Fi movie."

Only those voice commands activated by a button-press on the remote are sent over the internet. A company called Nuance (NUAN), maker of Dragon speech-to-text software, converts that voice data to text and sends it back to the TV so it can run a search. Samsung also collects those commands so that it can improve its service.

"This interaction works like most any other voice recognition service available on other products including smartphones and tablets," Samsung said in a blog post. "Samsung takes consumer privacy very seriously and our products are designed with privacy in mind."

Customers can opt-out of the voice command feature if they choose to.

(CNN)