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About & sourcing

The rule

Every claim on this site has a source attached. No source means it shows as unverified, not a guess — even when that's a less satisfying answer than a clean yes or no. Year and platform version are safe to work out from a model number. Whether a specific TV has a microphone isn't, so that one only ever comes from a source, never an inference.

What this site covers

Opt Out Of explains what the devices and accounts you use collect, and exactly which settings change it. It started with TVs: for each model, whether it has a built-in microphone, whether it runs automatic content recognition (ACR), whether its software shows ads in the TV's own menus, whether it looks for other devices on your home network, and whether it still gets updates, with a source for each answer. Where an official source gives the menu path, the page shows where to change the setting and what changing it does. The answers depend heavily on the model, not just the brand. A separate page covers streaming sticks and boxes (Fire TV Stick and Cube, Roku players, Google TV Streamer and Chromecast, Apple TV): ACR, microphones and ad settings.

Other sections cover connected cars, home devices (video doorbells and cameras, smart speakers, and travel: hotel TVs, hire cars, phone settings for hotel Wi-Fi, and cameras in holiday lets), phones, computers and AI apps (location history, AI chatbots, Meta AI, Windows Recall and tracker alerts), ad settings on phones, accounts and browsers, and getting your details off marketing lists and people-search sites in the UK and US.

We distinguish designed behaviour (documented in a manufacturer's own settings and privacy policy, like LG's ACR, "Live Plus") from research findings on modified devices. For example, a 2026 Gamers Nexus / Level1Techs report on LG TVs recording audio in standby came from a TV the researchers had rooted, which is a different claim from what a stock TV does. Where possible we cite the manufacturer's own documentation over descriptions of it.

Who runs this site

Opt Out Of is an independent, one-person project based in the UK. It isn't run by, paid by or connected to any of the companies it covers, and it makes no money: there are no ads, affiliate links or sponsors.

It exists because privacy settings are hard to find. Every TV maker, car brand, phone and app puts them somewhere different, and the answer often depends on the exact model or software version. This site puts each company's own answer, and where to change the setting, in one place.

How pages are made

• Each page starts from the company's own help pages, manuals, privacy notices or spec sheets, or from regulators such as the ICO and the FTC. Reviews, forums and news stories aren't used as sources.
• Every fact links to the page it came from, listed under Sources, and each page shows the date it was last checked.
• When two official sources disagree, the page says so rather than picking one. When no source answers a question, the page says "unverified".
• AI tools help with the research and drafting: finding the official pages, reading manuals and writing first drafts. Every claim is then checked against the source it links to, and anything that can't be matched to a source is taken out or marked unverified.
• Pages are rechecked when the company changes its documents, and when readers report a correction.

What this site is not

• Not affiliated with or endorsed by LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, VIZIO Inc., Roku Inc., Sky UK Limited, TCL Technology, Hisense Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation, Philips, TP Vision, Panasonic Corporation, Walmart Inc., Best Buy Co., Inc., Toshiba Corporation, Amazon.com, Inc., Element Electronics, or any other company named on this site.
• Not a general review or buying guide.
• Not commercial — no ads, no affiliate links, no sponsorship.
• No cookies, no ads, no third-party requests beyond what's disclosed here. This is a static site with a JSON file. Page views are counted using Cloudflare Web Analytics, which doesn't use cookies, doesn't identify your device, and doesn't track you across other sites — it just gives us an aggregate count of visits and which pages get read. Separately, there are three narrow, opt-in exceptions: if a TV search doesn't match anything and you click "Report this missing model"; if you type a car brand into "Ask for this brand" on the Cars page and send it; or if you fill in "Report a correction" at the bottom of this page and send it. Only then is what you typed sent to us, so we know what to add or fix. Nothing is sent unless you click that button; typing or an empty search result sends nothing on its own. What we store is just that text (for a correction, up to 1,000 characters, plus the page address if you type one in) and, for TVs, which brand's page you were on: no IP address, no cookie, no other identifier. It's automatically deleted after 30 days, whether or not anyone has looked at it.

Scope

The site covers the UK and US. Settings menus are often the same elsewhere, but the legal rights pages only apply in the country they name.

TVs

LG, Samsung, Vizio, Roku, Sky, TCL, Hisense, Sony, Philips, Panasonic, onn., Insignia, Toshiba, Amazon and Element, each researched separately: one brand's naming scheme, ACR branding or update policy is never assumed to carry over to another's. Both UK and US models are covered, and where a model differs between the two countries, each version has its own page. "Roku" here means Roku's own-branded TVs, not the many other makers (TCL, Hisense, onn. and others) that use the Roku TV software under their own brand name.

Several brands sell TVs on more than one smart-TV platform, so each model page says which one that model runs. TCL uses Google TV, Roku TV and Fire TV. Hisense uses Google TV, Fire TV and VIDAA (Hisense's own smart-TV software), sometimes switching from one model year to the next within the same series. Philips TVs here run Titan OS or Google TV in the UK, and Google TV or Roku TV in the US. Element's range includes Roku TV, Google TV, Xumo and TiVo models. onn. is Walmart's own brand rather than a manufacturer, and different onn. TVs run Roku TV, Google TV or VIZIO's own software (the "Powered by VIZIO" line). Most Sony models here run Google TV; the 2014 W600B and W605B run Sony's older smart-TV software. Sony documents Samba Interactive TV on a named list of older sets, while a current Texas lawsuit alleges wider use without identifying each series covered here. Those allegations are reported but are not used as model-specific proof.

Sky Glass is UK-only. Panasonic covers the UK W95B, W85B, Z90B, Z85A and Z95B, and the US Z95B. Amazon's own Fire TV and Ember TVs (Omni, Omni QLED, Omni Mini-LED, 2-Series, 4-Series and Ember Artline) are listed separately from the many other brands that use Fire TV software, because Amazon's own device pages say what microphone hardware, if any, each of its models has. Adding a brand means doing that research properly; we'd rather cover fewer brands accurately than more of them shallowly.

Cars (UK)

22 brands: the UK's 13 best-selling car brands in 2025, plus Tesla, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo, BYD, Honda, CUPRA, SEAT, Polestar and Renault. For each, how to remove a previous owner, what to do before you sell, and privacy settings, from the maker's own UK documents.

Home devices

Video doorbells and cameras (Ring, Google Nest, Arlo and Eufy), smart speakers (Google Nest, Apple HomePod and Sonos), Amazon Echo and Alexa, smart meters in the UK (how often readings are taken, and changing it with your supplier), games consoles and Roblox (data collection, voice data and who can see your activity), robot vacuums (cameras, home maps and data sharing), and travel: signing out of a hotel TV, clearing your phone from a hire car, phone settings for hotel Wi-Fi, and camera rules in holiday lets.

Phones, computers and AI apps

Location history (Google Maps Timeline, iPhone Significant Locations and Samsung), AI chatbots' training, memory and history settings (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude and Grok), Meta AI in WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, Windows Recall, fitness apps and watches (Strava, Garmin Connect, Fitbit, Apple Health and Samsung Health), location sharing in family apps (Life360, Google Family Link and Apple Family Sharing), and unknown tracker alerts on iPhone and Android.

Ad settings

Phones and accounts (iPhone, Android, Samsung, Google, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, Microsoft and Echo Show), browser settings (Global Privacy Control, Do Not Track, cookies and tracking) and the advertising industry's own opt-out tools. The free settings change how ads are personalised, not how many you see.

Your data

In the UK: the open register, credit agencies' marketing services, your credit file, junk mail, nuisance calls, Companies House, people-search sites, the details of someone who has died, NHS data opt-outs, a neighbour's camera, monitoring at work, and your data protection rights (getting a copy of your data, erasure, objecting and complaining). In the US: California's free delete tool (DROP), people-search sites and marketing data brokers. Anywhere: removing your details from Google Search results, and unlisting your number from Truecaller.

Coverage right now

There are 230 TV series from 15 brands so far, added one series and one source at a time. Coverage is deliberately incomplete rather than guessed. See the raw data at /tv/data.json.

Corrections

If you can source a correction — including confirming or updating a field currently marked unverified — it's genuinely useful. Point to something checkable: a maker's spec sheet or help page, a manual, a software update log, a teardown, or your own testing on a real device with enough detail that someone else could redo it.