小心“會偷聽的電視”

Samsung is warning customers about discussing personal information in front of their smart television set.

三星警告消費者在智能電視前不要交談個人信息。

The warning applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.

這個警告針對的是那些使用三星聲控智能電視的人。

When the feature is active, such TV sets "listen" to what is said and may share what they hear with Samsung or third parties, it said.

警告說，當聲控功能被激活后，這些電視會“偷聽”人們說話并且會將談話內(nèi)容分享給三星或第三方。

Privacy campaigners said the technology smacked of the telescreens, in George Orwell's 1984, which spied on citizens.

在喬治·奧威爾所著的《1984》中，隱私維權者曾說科技沖擊了電視熒屏，讓他們監(jiān)視民眾。

Data sharing

數(shù)據(jù)共享

The warning came to light via a story in online news magazine the Daily Beast which published an excerpt of a section of Samsung's privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets. These record what is said when a button on a remote control is pressed.

網(wǎng)上新聞雜志《每日野獸》的一則報道讓這一警示公諸于眾，他們刊登了三星聯(lián)網(wǎng)智能電視系統(tǒng)隱私策略的章節(jié)摘要。當遙控器上的聲控按鈕按下時，人們說的話就被會錄下來。

Smart TV owner Peter Kent: "It makes me think twice."

智能電視用戶彼得·肯特說：“這讓我開始重新考慮(是否要買)。”

The policy explains that the TV set will be listening to people in the same room to try to spot when commands or queries are issued via the remote. It goes on to say: "If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party."

隱私策略解釋說，當指令或要求通過遙控器傳達以后，電視系統(tǒng)就會聽房間內(nèi)的人們說的話，并從中辨別指令發(fā)出者。策略原文是：“如果你所說的話包含個人信息或其他一些敏感信息，這些信息將包含在電視系統(tǒng)捕捉并傳輸?shù)降谌降臄?shù)據(jù)信息中。”

Corynne McSherry, an intellectual property lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which campaigns on digital rights issues, told the Daily Beast that the third party was probably the company providing speech-to-text conversion for Samsung.

為電子前沿基金會服務的知識產(chǎn)權律師瑞尼·麥克謝利，告訴《每日野獸》那第三方可能是給三星提供語音到正文轉換技術的公司。電子前沿基金會一直致力于爭取數(shù)字權益。

She added: "If I were the customer, I might like to know who that third party was, and I'd definitely like to know whether my words were being transmitted in a secure form."

她補充說:“如果我是消費者，我也許會更想知道第三方是誰，我也肯定很想知道我的話是否通過安全的形式被傳輸。”

Soon after, an activist for the EFF circulated the policy statement on Twitter comparing it to George Orwell's description of the telescreens in his novel 1984 that listen to what people say in their homes.

不久后，一位電子前沿基金會活動家通過推特將這份隱私政策傳播開來，將其與喬治·奧威爾在《1984》中對智能屏幕的描述進行比較。

In response to the widespread sharing of its policy statement, Samsung has issued a statement to clarify how voice activation works. It emphasised that the voice recognition feature is activated using the TV's remote control.

三星發(fā)表了一篇澄清聲明對此作出回應，解釋了聲控功能激活是如何運行的。聲明稱，聲音識別功能是通過電視機的遙控器來操控的。

It said the privacy policy was an attempt to be transparent with owners in order to help them make informed choices about whether to use some features on its Smart TV sets, adding that it took consumer privacy "very seriously".

聲明表示，隱私政策意在對消費者開誠布公，讓用戶在了解智能電視機所有信息后選擇是否使用某些功能。他們同時表示，他們對顧客的隱私“非常重視”。

Samsung said: "If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search. At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV."

三星表示:“如果消費者贊成并且使用聲音識別功能，聲控數(shù)據(jù)將會被提供給第三方做聲控搜索支持。同時，聲音數(shù)據(jù)將會傳輸給服務器，再將搜索要求的內(nèi)容返回給電視。”

It added that it did not retain voice data or sell the audio being captured. Smart-TV owners would always know if voice activation was turned on because a microphone icon would be visible on the screen, it said.

他們同時補充說，他們沒有保留聲音數(shù)據(jù)或者將其出售。智能電視用戶隨時可以知道聲控系統(tǒng)是否打開，因為電視機屏幕上會有一個麥克風的圖標。

The third party handling the translation from speech to text is a firm called Nuance, which specialises in voice recognition, Samsung has confirmed to the BBC.

三星向BBC證實，幫助三星處理語音到文字轉換的第三方Nuance公司是一個專門從事語音識別的公司。

Samsung is not the first maker of a smart, net-connected TV to run into problems with the data the set collects. In late 2013, a UK IT consultant found his LG TV was gathering information about his viewing habits.

三星不是第一個生產(chǎn)智能聯(lián)網(wǎng)電視結果陷入數(shù)據(jù)收集風波的公司。2013年末，一家英國IT公司顧問發(fā)現(xiàn)他的LG電視在收集他的觀看習慣信息。

Publicity about the issue led LG to create a software update which ensured data collection was turned off for those who did not want to share information.

這一信息的公開使得LG公司將自己的軟件升級，讓不想分享信息的用戶可以關掉這些功能。

Vocabulary

think twice：三思，重新考慮

transmit：傳輸

speech-to-text conversion：語音至文字轉換

transparent：透明的

voice recognition：語音識別