Nvidia Shield TV

Nvidia Shield TV

Nvidia
Wi-Fi Bluetooth

Review date: Nov. 1, 2023

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Mozilla says

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People voted: Somewhat creepy

If you want an Android TV streaming box with features like Dolby Vision and Atmos, 4K HDR and AI-upscaling, and a customizable remote, then Nvidia Shield TV and Shield TV Pro are for you. It's got Google Assistant built in and lets you stream from Chromecast apps. It's perfect for the techies and gamers who want more than Roku or Fire TV offer. The bad news: it's not cheap. The good news: Nvidia seems to be better at privacy than those other guys.

What could happen if something goes wrong?

Apparently you can have a streaming TV service and have some privacy too! Indeed, Nvidia seems to do a pretty good job protecting users' privacy. They don't sell your data, which is good, especially in the streaming TV space. They even list users’ privacy rights right at the top of their privacy policy. These include things like, “You have the right to see the data we have collected, take it with you, make corrections, withdraw consent for future uses, opt out of sharing, or erase your data all together at any time.” Good work Nvidia!

Nvidia’s mercifully short privacy policy includes instructions on how to set up and use an opt-out preference signal -- which helps users opt-out of website tracking all at once through a browser extension instead of having to fiddle with cookie banners everywhere they go. Which is good, because if you do consent to receive marketing communications, Nvidia say they can gather data about you from publicly available sources across the internet and "identity enrichment data from third-party sources" and share that with business partners and advertisers like Google to target you with interest-based ads. That's not great...so don't forget to log into their Privacy Center to disable sharing with third party advertisers.

Nvidia's remote only listens for your voice when you push a button on the remote. That's a nice feature. Beware though, any asks you make of Google Assistant or Alexa to play your TV shows can be collected by Google and Amazon and used to target you with ads and content. While we are cautioning you, we should also mention that Nvidia reportedly suffered a data breach in 2022. Seventy one thousand employee credentials (no consumer data though) were stolen and some of those ended up online. It's a good reminder that nothing is 100% secure on the internet and that the best way to keep personal data safe is not collecting it in the first place.

All in all, Nvidia seemingly does an OK -- if not great -- job with privacy. In a streaming TV space where companies are hungry for all the data they can get on viewers, Nvidia seems to do much better than most.

Tips to protect yourself

  • You can configure privacy and data settings by visiting privacy.nvidia.com.
  • Opt out of data sharing for interest-based advertising via the privacy center
  • Use your device privacy controls to limit access to your personal information via app (do not give access to your camera, microphone, images, location unless necessary)
  • Keep your app regularly updated
  • Limit ad tracking via your device (eg on iPhone go to Privacy -> Advertising -> Limit ad tracking) and biggest ad networks (for Google, go to Google account and turn off ad personalization)
  • Request your data be deleted once you stop using the app. Simply deleting an app from your device usually does not erase your personal data.
  • When starting a sign-up, do not agree to tracking of your data if possible.
  • mobile

Can it snoop on me? information

Camera

Device: No

App: No

Microphone

Device: Yes

App: Yes

Tracks location

Device: Yes

App: Yes

What can be used to sign up?

What data does the company collect?

How does the company use this data?

We ding this product for collecting data from third party sources and combining that with additional data they collect on you to use for targeted advertising and marketing purposes.

Privacy Policy

"If you’ve consented to receive marketing communications or recommendations, we share hashed details about your identity with third-party ad providers such as Google to serve interest-based ads to you and others. These hashed details may include your name, email, phone number, job title, organizational business affiliations, zip code, country, and social media handles."

"Your information is shared in hashed form only, which means that your details are irreversibly converted to a fixed-size string of characters such as “0890f456684a70f1a9f1dbcee40c1fe847b76f338581a9a1d9202c76b1c175f4” (which is the SHA-256 hash of “NVIDIA”). Sharing information in hashed form means that third-party ad providers can only identify you if they already have the information we have shared and have hashed it themselves to match the hashed version we are sharing. Sharing information in hashed form is a way of identifying information that both parties have without sharing the information itself. You can opt out of data sharing for interest-based advertising at any time by visiting our Privacy Center or by enabling an opt-out preference signal."

"We collect your information from publicly or commercially available sources such as attendance at events we sponsor, searches on the public internet, and data enrichment services. This helps us communicate with you more effectively and find others who are interested in our products and services."

"We collect certain personal data from publicly available sources (e.g., the internet) to find individuals and organizations that may be interested in our products or services. The personal data we collect includes names, titles, areas of work, publication or funding histories, mentions of NVIDIA technology, and contact information including emails, phone numbers, and associated organizations or collaborations. .... If you have consented to receive marketing communications or recommendations, we share obfuscated (hashed) information about you with third-party ad providers such as Google to serve interest-based ads to you and others."

"We collect identity enrichment data from third-party sources such as your name, email, job title, company, associated industries, and social media handles..... We share this information with business partners so they can communicate with you about relevant products or services. If you have consented to receive marketing communications or recommendations, we share obfuscated (hashed) information about you with third-party ad providers such as Google to serve interest-based ads to you and others."

"AV and AI technologies require access to large volumes of high-quality data to learn how to perceive, classify, and navigate among people, objects, and scenes. We collect public images and other data through sensors on NVIDIA or partner-identified vehicles and in clearly disclosed public spaces–as well as datasets collected by others–to improve the safety and reliability of our AV and AI models. This data is never associated with any other product or service."

How can you control your data?

Privacy Policy

"We retain your personal data for as long as our engagement with you continues (e.g., emails, website visits, logins, or event attendance). We erase customer and enterprise personal data if there has been no engagement with you for more than five years.

We retain data collected from public spaces for as long as it continues to support our AV and AI projects. If you are a member of the public and wish to exercise any of your privacy rights, please contact us directly at [email protected]."

"You have the right to see the data we have collected, take it with you, make corrections, withdraw consent for future uses, opt out of sharing, or erase your data all together at any time."

"You can opt out of data sharing for interest-based advertising at any time by visiting our Privacy Center or by enabling an opt-out preference signal."

What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?

Average

In March 2022, a data leak happened at Nvidia that exposed credentials of over 71,000 employees. "Impacted data included over 70k employee email addresses and NTLM password hashes, many of which were subsequently cracked and circulated within the hacking community.” In a tweet Troy Hunt, the owner of HaveIBeenPwnd, stated that 17% of addresses were already in the database." Nvidia promptly stepped back and required all employees to change passwords. The consumer data was not impacted by the breach.

Child Privacy Information

"We take special care to protect the privacy of children, and our products and services are not targeted for use by children under the age of 13.

We don’t collect data from children under the age of 13. We also don’t collect data if the collection would require parental consent in the relevant jurisdiction.

We do not share any data of children under the age of 18 unless sharing is necessary for service functionality. For example, if a user is already an account holder with one of our GeForce NOW Alliance partners, we share the user’s operating system version, network type, games played, session time, ratings and feedback, error data, and a masked version of the user’s IP address with that GeForce NOW Alliance Partner to enable that service’s functionality.

We employ reasonable technological safeguards to comply with local laws, and to prevent underage children from accessing areas of our services where personal information may be collected. For example, underage children are not allowed to participate in our user-to-user forums, subscribe to an email newsletter, or enter any of our sweepstakes or contests.

Please contact us if you become aware that your child has provided us with personal data without your consent."

Can this product be used offline?

No

User-friendly privacy information?

Yes

Nvidia's privacy policy is fairly easy to read and understand. They use tables to make it easier to understand what data they collect and how they use it, which we appreciate.

Links to privacy information

Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards? information

Yes

Encryption

Yes

Strong password

Yes

Security updates

Yes

Manages vulnerabilities

Yes

Privacy policy

Yes

Does the product use AI? information

Yes

Is this AI untrustworthy?

Can’t Determine

What kind of decisions does the AI make about you or for you?

SHIELD delivers AI powered upscaling, capable of intelligently scaling lower resolution video to your TV’s native resolution.

Is the company transparent about how the AI works?

Yes

Does the user have control over the AI features?

Yes

*Privacy Not Included

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