TV Panel spying on your viewing

Just turned on my TV and a pop-up message came up on the local channel advising me TV Panel was monitoring my TV and to visit the website to opt out.

I did that - it's here: http://www.tvpanel.co.uk/faq/

Supposedly it's a new way of monitoring ratings and there they tell you you are able to opt out by pressing yellow, even though GDPR clearly states such things should be opt-in nowadays.

Anyone heard anything about it?

You might be surprised by how much data is being collected from a smart TV connected to the Internet.

I'm more surprised someone is admitting to it.

Is it something that you might have agreed to in the small print, like users of the La Liga app in Spain - who unwittingly helped the league find bars pirating their content?

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2840590

It’s a bit more nuanced than that. Getting opt-in consent is just one potential legal basis for collecting or processing data. It looks like the usage data they collect without consent is non-identifiable, and explicit consent is obtained for any personally identifiable information on top of that. All seems above board.

Were you watching on Freeview? I wonder how many manufacturers support this.

Who is this company?! Insecure website, powered by Wordpress. With patronising answers like




My Samsung gave a similar message when I set it up which I think I’m still opted into. I assume it’s their own analytics, or powered by a third party. Apparently it can detect what is being watched via connected devices. Don’t know if that’s down to Virgin sending some sort of metadata (via HDMI?) or creating a fingerprint of the actual video being broadcast

Don't BARB do something with wearable devices that reads inaudible watermarks embedded in audio, either on TV or on the radio?

If it's passive fingerprinting, that's probably audio as well.

Freeview, on a Samsung Smart TV (though a few years old now). Not checked on other devices.

It seems to be a local TV thing, though you only discover that through a link hidden in the privacy policy: http://www.tvpanel.co.uk/channels/

Isn't clear at all whether it's just capturing information from the participating channel or your viewing habits on all channels. Indeed if you never view the local channel will you even know about it?

I'm sure I've seen it mentioned Sky can capture viewing information from their boxes too, but suspect that's in the T&Cs somewhere. Similarly Now TV and other internet based systems must have fairly accurate tracking systems of streams being viewed and we know they have records of on demand shows being watched. I think the thing that catches you off guard here is it's a completely unknown generically named company placing something on your device which you've never agreed too. If it looked as if it was coming from Freeview itself or even BARB it wouldn't seem so suspicious or intrusive.

I guess there are big advantages to broadcasters in finding out exactly when and why viewers are tuning in or out. A good example of this would be Amazon Prime - wasn’t it claimed that they cut the majority of the tent-based parts of The Grand Tour because their analysis of viewing data showed that more people skipped over it to watch the features?

The more data broadcasters have, the more efficiently and effectively they can make their shows.

I got what looked like an MHEG5 pop-up on London Live when watching via DVB-T a week or so ago about viewer panels or similar. (Sony TV)

I have a dumb tv, so pressed the text button and got some technical gubbins come up on screen.