Class action says Hisense Chinese TVs spying on Americans

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Building off of a Texas state enforcement action, trial lawyers are also headed into court against Chinese TV maker Hisense, seeking a court-ordered payout for allegedly enabling their entertainment devices to spy on Americans, potentially on behalf of the Chinese Communist government.

On May 12, attorneys with the firm of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise, of Los Angeles, filed suit in San Francisco federal court against Hisense USA Corporation.

Hisense USA is a Georgia-based company that serves as the U.S. arm of Hisense Group Holdings, a consumer electronics manufacturer which is owned by the government of China.

Among other products, Hisense produces lines of so-called Smart Televisions, which are sold throughout the U.S. and the world.

However, the lawsuit asserts Hisense TVs are also embedded with so-called automatic content recognition (ACR) technology. The devices allegedly allow Hisense and potentially others to monitor everything its customers are viewing and otherwise quietly and surreptitiously gather information about customers' homes and habits.

"Hisense's Smart TVs sit in millions of American living rooms, including the homes of military servicemembers, intelligence-community personnel, judges, elected officials, journalists and dissidents," the plaintiffs assert in their class action lawsuit.

"Through (ACR) technology embedded in these devices and operated by Hisense ... Hisense and (its subsidiaries) capture every sound and image displayed on the screen as often as every 500 milliseconds, link that data to persistent device-, household-, and cross-device identifiers, and re-distribute the resulting bulk sensitive personal data to a network of downstream ad-tech, identity-graph, data-broker, and measurement partners -- and ... to Hisense's Chinese parents and affiliates, which are subject to Chinese law compelling them to share that data with the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party on demand."

The lawsuit comes about five months since Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton filed lawsuits against Hisense and other Asian consumer tech companies, accusing the companies of violating U.S. law by allegedly illegally spying on Americans. In addition to Hisense, Paxton also sued Sony, Samsung, LG and TCL Technology Group.

In that action, Paxton secured a temporary restraining order against Hisense, stopping the company from collecting, using, selling, sharing, disclosing, or transferring data gleaned from its ACR tech embedded in TVs.

However, the trial lawyers say more court action is needed to compensate consumers who were allegedly harmed by the alleged ACR data collection on their TVs and to force Hisense to follow U.S. law.

"Plaintiffs and Class Members in California (and across the United States) deserve no less protection," the plaintiffs said in their complaint.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiffs Stacee Severino, of Crescent City; Jill Cohen, of Chino; Kenney Reese, of Los Angeles; Shari Etchebarren, of Diamond Bar; and Brandy Minner, of Stockton. All of the named plaintiffs say they have purchased Hisense Smart TVs in recent years and have installed them in their homes for personal and family use.

They assert they believe Hisense and its subsidiaries have secretly tracked and shared their viewing history and habits, practices the plaintiffs say they never authorized.

They accuse Hisense of violating their privacy rights, and specifically of violating federal and California laws governing surveillance, privacy and data sharing.

Plaintiffs are seeking an injunction preventing Hisense from continuing to allegedly collect and share data.

And they are seeking a potential big payout, including unspecified money damages, plus punitive damages from Hisense.

Plaitniffs are represented by attorneys Melisa A. Rosadini-Knott, Brandon M. Wise and Andrew R. Tate, of the Peiffer Wolf firm, of Los Angeles, St. Louis and Atlanta.