San Francisco lawyers say Hisense USA has turned millions of its smart TVs into always-on surveillance tools, according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed last Tuesday. The complaint alleges the sets' automatic content recognition, or ACR, can grab snapshots of what is on a screen as often as every 500 milliseconds, then combine those fingerprints with device and household identifiers to build cross-device profiles. The plaintiffs are seeking money damages and a court order enjoining the data collection.
What the complaint says
According to CourtListener records in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, five named plaintiffs represented by Peiffer Wolf allege that Hisense and its VIDAA unit capture ACR fingerprints every 500 milliseconds, tie them to IP addresses and persistent device identifiers, and then share the results with ad-tech, identity-graph and data-broker partners. The filing also highlights Hisense’s corporate links to state-owned entities in Qingdao, China, noting that HKEXnews disclosures list the Qingdao municipal State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission as the ultimate beneficial owner of parts of the Hisense group.
Regulatory backdrop and prior enforcement
The complaint leans on a recent federal rule, pointing to the Department of Justice’s 28 C.F.R. Part 202 regulation, known as the Bulk Sensitive Data Transfer Rule, which took effect April 8, 2025, and restricts transfers of Americans' bulk sensitive data to "countries of concern," according to the Federal Register. The plaintiffs also cite a separate action by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who TechRadar reports sued Hisense in December 2025 and obtained a temporary restraining order that paused ACR collection in Texas.
What the suit claims
The 97-page filing stacks up 14 causes of action, including alleged violations of the federal Wiretap Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, California invasion-of-privacy laws, the Unfair Competition Law, negligence and breach of implied contract. On top of statutory and compensatory damages, the plaintiffs are asking for injunctive relief. They say the ACR system watches all inputs to the television, including streaming apps, cable boxes, gaming consoles and HDMI-connected devices, then enriches viewing records with other identifiers to build household-level profiles that can be sold or licensed.
Where the data goes
Coverage in outlets including the Tampa Free Press, along with the allegations in the complaint, identifies downstream partners such as Nexxen, Roku, Amazon’s Fire TV business and Alphonso. According to the suit, those companies use the ACR fingerprints to help turn viewing data into addressable advertising segments and cross-device identity graphs. The complaint says partners receive the data in real time or near-real time, which is what makes that precise targeting, measurement and attribution across devices possible.
How to limit tracking now
Privacy advocates recommend digging into your TV’s settings, turning off any ACR-style features that may be labeled as "Enhanced Viewing" or similar during setup, and considering an external streaming stick or network-level blocking if you want to keep the television itself from sending ACR data back to servers. For more detailed, step-by-step guidance on finding and disabling ACR on popular brands, look to testing and how-to guides from outlets that have reviewed TV privacy controls.
What’s next
The case will now move forward in federal court. If the plaintiffs win class certification or an injunction, the outcome could ripple across the smart TV industry, potentially forcing changes to on-screen consent flows and the contracts that tie TV makers to ad-tech firms. Legal observers say this suit, coming amid state-level enforcement and the DOJ’s new data-transfer rule, could accelerate regulatory and commercial fixes to how television viewing data is collected and sold.
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