What Is ACR On Your Smart TV? (And Why You Might Want To Turn It Off)

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One of the greatest strengths of your smart TV is its ability to connect to the internet. This allows you to stream your favorite movies and shows, browse the web, and even wirelessly cast content from your mobile devices. However, this same connectivity also enables your smart TV to spy on you. One of the key technologies it uses for this is ACR (or Automatic Content Recognition). 

Streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and others already know what you're watching and how long you watch based on your interactions with their apps. This data helps them gauge a show or movie's popularity and recommend content. TV manufacturers, on the other hand, rely on ACR to track your viewing habits across multiple apps and services. Since ACR runs in the background and is buried deep within the TV's settings menu, most users aren't even aware of its existence.

Below, we'll explain what ACR is, how it works on your smart TV, and most importantly, why you might want to disable it. Let's dive in!

ACR is a surveillance technology that most major smart TV brands use to collect data about the content you watch. It analyzes the audio and video signals on your TV to determine what you're watching and sends this data to a centralized server, where it is cross-referenced with a library of known content for identification. 

What's even more troubling is that ACR isn't limited to content you stream from the internet. It can also identify anything you play from cable TV, DVDs, and even gaming consoles by continuously capturing screenshots (two every second). Simply put, your TV manufacturer knows what you're watching and how long you're watching it. 

ACR is primarily used to track your viewing habits and deliver targeted ads. The data collected helps build a profile of your preferences and show you personalized content suggestions and ads. However, this data doesn't just stay with the manufacturers; they also sell it to advertising agencies and data analytics firms to profit from it.

While you can opt out of ACR, TV manufacturers often use different names for it, which makes it harder to find. Below, we'll show you how to disable ACR on popular TV brands.

• Samsung refers to its ACR technology as Viewing Information Services on its TVs. To disable it, go to Settings > All Settings > Terms & Privacy > Privacy Choices > Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policies, and uncheck the Viewing Information Services box. 
• LG uses the term Live Plus for its ACR technology on TVs. To turn it off, press the settings button on your remote and head to All Settings > General > System > Additional Settings. Then, turn off the Live Plus toggle. 
• On Sony TVs running Samba Interactive TV, you can disable ACR feature by heading to Settings > System Preferences > Samba Interactive TV and selecting Disable. 
• If you have a Roku TV, you can go to Settings > Privacy > Smart TV Experience and toggle off the Use Info from TV Inputs. 
• To disable ACR on Android TV or Google TV, head to Settings > Privacy > Usage and Diagnostics and disable the toggle.
• On Fire TV, go to Settings > Preferences > Privacy Settings and disable Device Usage Data and Collect App Usage Data toggles. Next, go to Preferences > Data Monitoring, and turn it off. 
• On VIZIO TV, System > Reset & Admin > Viewing Data, and press OK to disable ACR.