Re:German parents told to destroy Cayla dolls over hacking f...
by eveningcoffee on Friday February 17, 2017 @02:18PM
(#13670892)
This is load of bullocks and failure of Germans to follow their own law.
If am certain than a common person does not expect TV to be equipped with a microphone transmitter. This is not a function of a TV.
That it has been somehow overlooked does not make it right.
Assume you are a visitor somewhere, back at the time when smart TVs where still new and uncommon. You see two things in a room: A regular-looking doll and a TV. A doll is made out of fabric, so a doll cannot transmit your voice. A TV is – that's known to any layperson – a complex technological object that does a lot of stuff with electronics. It's not absolutely far-fetched to assume a probability that it contains a microphone. That's the difference in the eyes of the law. The "smart doll" is in fact not a doll but a microphone-speaker-device concealed in a doll. The TV does not conceal anything, it's just "electronicy" looking.
I've never heard of anybody argue that Smart TVs fall under that law even when they were new.