Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton filed lawsuits Monday against five major television companies for allegedly spying on state residents by secretly recording what they watch in their own homes.

The lawsuits include two China-based television companies, Hisense and TCL Technology Group Corporation, which Paxton claimed pose serious concerns about consumer data harvesting. 

The three American companies are Sony, Samsung and LG. 

“Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” Paxton said. “This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries.”

Paxton's office said the companies have been illegally collecting personal information from users through Automated Content Recognition technology, which captures "screenshots of a user’s television display every 500 milliseconds, monitor viewing activity in real time, and transmit that information back to the company without the user’s knowledge or consent."

The companies then sell the information to ad agencies so targeted advertisements can be shared on different platforms.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.