Your PC knows your age. Your TV knows what you watch. Privacy is disappearing

Most recently, Microsoft announced a new API for Windows—”Windows Age API.” Normally, developer talk lacks buzz for us consumers, but this embedded support for age verification upends decades of expectations. Before, user anonymity was the baseline. Windows had no centralized system for checking age. But now, this API will unify and streamline that process across everything Windows touches, including apps and services.

The idea is to simplify age protections for parents and developers—reducing the need for parents to comb through individual app settings, and for developers to program their own age verification systems. Apps and services can query Windows to see if a Microsoft account owner is old enough.

But to set that age, Microsoft will require information it’s never previously asked for—either a selfie (for estimation of age based on your face), document upload, or logging into a government digital identity platform (e.g., Singpass) where applicable. And that data may pass through multiple hands—Microsoft lists two partners who handle the verification process, Yoti and Verifymy.

Meanwhile, on the less personal yet creepier side of the spectrum, LG found itself as hot news, thanks to an investigative report focused on its smart TVs. Just before Labor Day, YouTube channel Gamers Nexus published a two-hour video detailing how LG televisions capture info on all devices connected to your home network; record audio conversations; and monitor what you watch on the TV. And none of the behavior requires an internet connection to activate.

In response to these damning accusations, LG released a statement to defend its TV features. The scanning helps with connecting to nearby devices. The other features must be opted into by users. Otherwise, its TVs do not collect or record conversations.

LG may actually not intend to spy on customers—at least, not in the way people could think after watching the Gamers Nexus video. But functionally, smart TVs do just that. The collection of information happens silently, its scope broader than most people realize. More granular, too. For example, Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) samples video and audio from what you watch to figure out your viewing habits. You can be disconnected from a streaming service but still monitored anyway.