Samsung Smart TV raises spying privacy fears

Get used to gadgets eavesdropping on your conversations. I'm Bridget Carey, and this is your cnet update. There's quite a bit of buzz about the voice recognition feature in Samsung smart tvs. In particular, how tvs listen to your conversations. In order to pick up on your voice commands and that data can be sent to third parties. The Daily Beast was the first to stir up commotion with a report about the privacy policy wording. So, should you be worried about television spying on your living room conversations? A little yes and a little no. Here's some perspective on Samsung. The outside party Samsung is sending your speech to is Nuance. It's voice recognition software provider that turns speech into text. Nuance also works with a bunch of other tech companies like LG, Panasonic and ZTE. It also works with auto makers like BMW, Ford, Honda and Subaru. So cars will also be listening to your conversations, so it can detect when you say that magic voice command keyword. You know what also listens to you? The Amazon echo smart speaker, and the Xbox Kinect. Which also has voice commands. For the most part, companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google keep that data on their servers. The bottom line is that sharing to a third party like Nuance shouldn't really worry you, but what we need to all be cautious about is how the companies are keeping that data secure when it transit. Samsung says it encrypts voice data for security protections, and it does not retain the data or sell it. But don't forget: if you have a Samsung Smart TV, you could just turn the listening feature off. In other TV news, Dish's Sling TV series launched nationwide in the US on Monday. The Internet streaming television service gives people 12 channels for $20 a month, and coming soon to that bundle is AMC. So fans of The Walking Dead, Mad Men, or Better Call Saul. Can get there fix. Moving onto sketchy cyber security stories, the software maker Intuit is once again letting people file state income tax returns with TurboTax. The option was turned off after fraud scare and worry about suspicious filings. But the company says there was no breach of data and filings have resumed. Fraudulent tax claims are a growing issue, especially when health insurance provider Anthem just lost the personal info and Social Security numbers of 80 million people. That data could be purchased off a hacker to file a bogus tax claim. And if you have Anthem for health insurance, be careful not to fall for phishing emails that claim to be from Anthem trying to trick you into clicking bad links or share personal data. Cyber security reporter Brian Krebs has an example of such a phishing email on his blog. But Anthem has sent no calls or emails to customers. The real notifications will be coming to people through the postal service. You know, good old fashioned paper mail. That's your tech news update. And there's more details at cnet.com. From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.