LG ThinQ data collection

LG ThinQ data collection is the personal information LG gathers through the connected appliances it markets as "AI" that listens to and senses the home, and the data it shares with advertising and data-broker partners. LG brands the technology "Affectionate Intelligence" and says its smart devices are "optimized to learn and analyze your physical and emotional life patterns", with a ThinQ ON hub that "listens to your commands and sense the surroundings." The ThinQ Privacy Policy that governs those features names "Advertising partners" and "marketing companies and data brokers" among the parties LG shares with or receives data from, and LG gates the app behind repeated acceptance of that policy: when it revises the terms, the app shows a wall reading "Please agree to the terms again." with a single "Accept all" control.

LG markets appliances that listen and sense

LG brands its connected appliances as artificial intelligence it calls "Affectionate Intelligence", an "empathetic and caring AI". Its AI Home marketing describes appliances built to watch, listen to, and learn from the people in the home:

• LG says its smart devices are "optimized to learn and analyze your physical and emotional life patterns".
• The ThinQ ON hub "listens to your commands and sense the surroundings to deliver the Life's Good experience in every moment."
• Under "Smart sensing", LG says that by "Detecting temperature, humidity, air quality, and occupancy" its devices "intuitively optimize performance to match your preferences."
• LG markets an "LG AI TV that recognizes you, adapts to you, and cares for you", an AI Voice Assistant to "Control and manage your devices with just your voice", and a per-user "Voice ID".
• In its mobility marketing, LG says that while a user is driving, "LG AI syncs with your ready-to-connect devices elsewhere, detects your surroundings, and understands your behavior and emotions."
• The kitchen page lists "Analyzing", "Optimizing", "Adapting", and "Listening and responding in real time for seamless living"; that page does not state that any kitchen appliance contains a microphone or records audio in the home.

Cameras and on-device AI appear in LG's higher-end appliances:

• At CES 2026, an LG SIGNATURE refrigerator's ThinQ Food feature "uses an internal camera to help identify ingredients" and an oven's "Gourmet AI, which uses an AI camera inside the oven to identify more than 85 dishes"; the refrigerator is "Equipped with conversational AI based on Large Language Model (LLM) technology".
• Not everything LG labels "AI" involves listening: the AI DD washing machine's feature measures the load, "individually analyze[s] the weight and fabric type of your laundry", and activates "when the load is under 3kg."

What ThinQ collects and shares

The data these features rely on is governed by the LG Privacy Policy, dated "Last Updated: 07 / 10 / 2024" and applying to "our SmartHome services offered via our ThinQ App."

Collected directly or through the ThinQ service:

• Name, email, phone number, "date of birth", gender, "speakers voice", photo, video, payment card information, and shipping address.
• "speaker's voice and its' translated text" (LG's own apostrophe placement), profile and home and room data, and "geolocation".

Collected from each linked appliance:

• "device behaviour and history of use, power (on/off) and power usage information, information on network connection and surrounding network environment", and "Product Error/Malfunction Information".
• Air Conditioning Smart Care: "Spatial data, including user location (according to distance and angle)" and "human sensing information".
• Robot vacuum: images and video, a "drawing map", and "cleaning history, cleaning diary list".

Received and shared:

• LG receives information "from other third parties, for example marketing companies and data brokers", and may receive data from "Facebook, Google, Amazon or Line."
• LG shares with "Advertising partners" "how you interact with our Services, the ads you see and the purchases you make", along with "Third party IoT providers" and authorised resellers.
• For EEA, UK, and Swiss users, LG "will transfer your personal information to other countries outside the EEA, UK or Switzerland, including the Republic of Korea and the United States."

• LG ThinQ privacy policy, the version dated July 10, 2024
• 
  Policy header, "Last Updated: 07 / 10 / 2024", the version the viewer was required to accept.
• 
  LG collects information "from other third parties, for example marketing companies and data brokers".
• 
  LG shares "the ads you see and the purchases you make" with "Advertising partners".
• 
  For EEA, UK, and Swiss users, the policy transfers data to "the Republic of Korea and the United States".

Forced re-consent on connected appliances

The LG ThinQ app's forced re-consent wall presents a single "Accept all" control before its "Next" button, captured by an LG washing-machine owner in the EU on July 18, 2024.

LG gates the ThinQ app's features behind repeated acceptance of its terms. The wall a viewer captured in July 2024 routes acceptance through one button: it states "LG Electronics' Terms of Service has been revised." and "Please agree to the terms again.", and offers a single "Accept all" control before the "Next" button, with no per-item toggle.

One LG washing-machine owner in the EU, who emailed Louis Rossmann on July 18, 2024, documented the wall in use:

• His washing machine notified him a cycle had finished; opening the notification forced the wall before the app would work again.
• He said the app "can't even work locally on my IoT network", so he had to expose it to the internet to get a cycle-done notification, and called the exchange "The shittiest deal ever."

LG smart-device data and security incidents

• In 2013, NBC News reported that LG Smart TVs transmitted what users watched, kept sending data after a user switched the collection setting off, sent it unencrypted, and in one test transmitted the names of files saved on a connected USB drive to LG.
• In 2017, Check Point disclosed the HomeHack vulnerability: a flaw in the SmartThinQ app let its researchers take over an LG account knowing only the victim's email address and control the user's appliances, including the live video camera in LG's Hom-Bot robot vacuum. Check Point said LG fixed it in an update.
• On December 15, 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued LG and four other makers (Samsung, Sony, Hisense, and TCL) over Automated Content Recognition, which the office said can capture screenshots of a television's display every 500 milliseconds and lets the companies "sell that consumer information to target ads across platforms for a profit." That suit concerned ACR on televisions, not ThinQ appliances.
• On May 11, 2026, the Texas Attorney General announced a settlement with LG requiring a pop-up disclosure about viewing-data collection and an opt-out.

GDPR and forced consent

On May 25, 2018, the day the General Data Protection Regulation took effect, the privacy group noyb filed forced-consent complaints against Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, arguing that the GDPR prohibits forced consent and the bundling of a service with a requirement to consent, and citing Article 7(4) of the GDPR. Those complaints concerned Google and Meta services, not LG.