Skyworth chief executive Tony Wang unveils premium 8K TV models at the Consumer Electronics Show during the CES Unveiled event at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, Jan. 5, 2020.
A China-based manufacturer of smart televisions has been accused of spying on its users by scanning their homes for other devices connected to the wifi network every few minutes, owners of the devices have reported on social media.
Smart TVs made by
Skyworth were found to have an app -- Gozen Data -- installed on the
Android-based operating system of the TV, according to a post on the
V2EX website titled "My TV is monitoring all connected devices."
According
to the post, Gozen Data scanned for and collected the names of his
computer, his network interface card, IP addresses, and the usernames of
those connected to his and other local wifi networks.
"I found that there was something called ‘Gozen Data,' and I had no idea what it was doing," the post said.
"The
service was sending back the hostnames, mac, ip, and even the network
delay time, as well as detecting the nearby wifi SSID names and mac
addresses and sending them off to ... a database," it said.
The data, according to screenshots posted by the user, was sent to gz-data.com,
a data analysis platform managed by Gozen Data that counts among its
international customers Sanyo, Toshiba and Philips, and which holds data
harvested from 103 million smart TVs according to 2018 figures.
Project Xueliang
While the company told the Apple Daily newspaper in
Hong Kong that the data wasn't used for surveillance, but for targeted
advertising, former citizen journalist Xing Jian said the Android smart
TV operating system has been repurposed by the Chinese government for
surveillance of people's homes in rural areas, in an operation known as
Project Xueliang.
"Project Xueliang uses the Android
operating system to achieve full domain coverage, full network sharing,
round-the-clock and remote-controlled video surveillance for policing
purposes," Xing said.
"This app is a form of spyware
that is inserted onto users' smartphones, TVs and other Android
devices, and it will automatically scan and collect data about devices,
usage information and social connections, and upload it to a government
database for online monitoring," he said.
Analysts
said the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appears to be implementing
a nationwide surveillance network that includes watching people in
their own homes and monitoring their contacts and interactions.
Other
social media posts have said that users are worried about using Android
TVs at all, while others have reported on Xiaomi routers requesting
wifi-related information every few seconds.
A
Shanxi-based legal scholar surnamed Song said the surveillance is aiming
for total control over what people are saying to each other.
"The
government is strengthening control of people's data for the purposes
of ideological control," Song said. "They are also hoping to penetrate
people's minds and influence their lives with government propaganda."
"They will be the arbiters of what news and information is appropriate for people to have access to," he said.
CCP uses surveillance and propaganda
Xing Jian agreed, saying that the CCP uses surveillance and propaganda as a way to bolster its grip on power.
"[They
are] using state power to stop people monitoring the government or
pursuing corrupt officials, so as to stay in power," Xing said.
"The
Cyberspace Administration of China uses methods such as sending letters
and stopping domain name resolution to domestic websites, shutting down
public opinion monitoring websites, and taking measures to block
overseas websites; the propaganda department forces webmasters and
moderators to delete posts under their control by sending letters, and
through coercion and manipulation," Xing said.
An
employee at Skyworth’s Hong Kong office surnamed Chan told the Apple
Daily that the data is purely for commercial use, for the purposes of
targeted advertising, and denied it was spying on users.
Users
are asked if they accept the data collection policy when they activate
the smart system, and could compromise their TV's functionality if they
reject it, the paper quoted Chan as saying.
Chinese
citizens are already monitored by more than 20 million surveillance
cameras as they go about their daily business in public places,
according state media reported in 2018.
Artificial
intelligence can also identify and "tag" individual cars, cyclists, and
pedestrians with distinguishing information that can be stored and
searched for descriptions of wanted individuals.
The
smart video tool correctly identifies the gender, age, and clothing
descriptions of passersby, as well as distinguishing between motorized
and non-motorized vehicles, recent media reports say.
The
technology comes amid a growing trend towards using facial recognition
as a secure form of ID, including to identify rail and airline
passengers, physical and e-commerce customers, and missing persons
cases.
Facial recognition technology is already used
by ride-sharing and robotic package delivery apps, airport and college
dorm security, and social credit schemes, as well against jaywalkers.
source: Radio Free Asia
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