Valerie Vlasenko reports:
TP Vision is a joint venture based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which develops, manufactures and markets Philips branded TV sets in Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and selected countries in Asia-Pacific.
In 2012 TP Vision made statements about their monitoring the use of Philips branded smart TVs in the Netherlands, such as
“60% of our active users switch on their television more than 50 times a month”.
The Dutch Data Protection Authority started an investigation into TP Visions collection and handling of usage data.
Not surprisingly, they were found to be in violation:
TP Vision used cookies and logfiles in order to monitor the users behavior – the programs, which the users were watching, the websites they were visiting and thee apps they used for that, and intended to offer personalized ads to its customers. However TP Visions did not ask their prior permission to these actions. Moreover the company did not inform their customers about such monitoring, providing them with insufficient information about processing their personal data.
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