The company in question, Alphonso Inc., is a Silicon Valley-based startup whose technology is “embedded in tens of millions of smart TVs, TV chipsets, set-top boxes, and other connected devices” that gathers massive amounts of personal data on Americans.
Its technology is used by popular companies such as LG, TiVo, and Sling, but a more sinister connection exists: Alphonso collaborates and shares data with Chinese state-owned technology company Hisense.
As a Chinese state-owned enterprise, Hisense is under the complete financial and managerial control of the Qingdao government.
While the electronics manufacturer often operates under brand names such as Sharp and Toshiba, its partnership with Hisense could easily allow data gathered on Americans to end up in the hands of the Chinese government.
What’s more, Alphonso’s current leadership has an additional link to another Chinese government-controlled company: the company’s Senior Business Development Director Gary Hsieh previously worked at HiSilicon, a subsidiary of Huawei.
Huawei is a controversial company labeled a “national security threat” by the Trump administration and a Chinese military collaborator by the US Department of Defense (DOD) that routinely provides the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) backdoor access to its networks and devices.
Concerns over Hisense are similar to those of other well-known China-based technology companies such as Huawei, TikTok, and Tencent, all of which are currently under fire in the US for siphoning Americans’ data and censoring content at the direction of the Chinese government.
Hisense, therefore, is keen on saturating the American market and is using Alphonso to do so.
As Paul Gagnon, IHS Inc.’s Director of TV Sets Research, described to the Wall Street Journal, Hisense’s “strategic goal overseas is to grow market share so there is a willingness at the corporate level to accept lower returns.”
Ostensibly, Hisense would make up the difference by monetizing the data it collects on Americans.
Alphonso’s business relationship with Hisense is particularly worrisome because of the extensive personal data it collects on Americans – data that is often sensitive and sometimes collected without their knowledge.
Alphonso, for example, was singled out by The New York Times in 2017 for its aggressive collection of user data, including personal information such as “age, gender, income and more”…
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