Smart Grid technology spying on you ?

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Utility companies across the U.S. are installing smart meters in customers? homes, touting the technology?s energy-saving ways, but opponents argue that the meters are opening a Pandora?s box of privacy concerns.

The smart energy meters read electric or gas usage, and enable a power company to collect detailed usage data on a particular home or building. But the readings also gather personal information that some critics argue is too intrusive.

The information gathered from smart meters includes unencrypted data that can, among other details, reveal when a homeowner is away from their residence for long periods of time. The electric wattage readings can even decipher what type of activities a customer is engaged in, such as watching TV, using a computer or even how long someone spends cooking.

The Vermont ACLU has, in the past few years, participated in the privacy debate over smart energy meters. The group says that one major issue with data collected from the meters is the same with cellphone data. The agency has filed lawsuits against law enforcement agencies in the state over cellphone data being harvested through secret inquests and used to track an individual?s whereabouts.

The group has suggested a proposal to the state government so the same won?t happen with smart-meter data.

?We have put up quite a strong argument for user utility data,? Gilbert said. ?This is why we presented a proposition in which we said that police departments should not get customer information from a utility.

The U.S. Department of Energy has even admitted that privacy and data access is a concern as far back as 2010 in a report on the smart meter technology.

?Advances in Smart Grid technology could significantly increase the amount of potentially available information about personal energy consumption,? reads a statement from the report, titled ?Data Access and Privacy Issues Related to Smart Grid Technologies.?

The report states, ?Such information could reveal personal details about the lives of consumers, such as their daily schedules (including times when they are at or away from home or asleep), whether their homes are equipped with alarm systems, whether they own expensive electronic equipment such as plasma TVs, and whether they use certain types of medical equipment.?

Ohio residents are dealing with the third-party collection issue, as police agencies work to obtain utility data to determine if suspects have been growing marijuana in their homes.

The subpoenas allow investigators access to utility records for a particular house they are investigating, as well as for a few other homes on the block in an attempt to determine if there is a ?grow house,?  which is likely to use three to five times more power than anyone else when harvesting marijuana.

In Philadelphia, customers of PECO have complained and opted out of having the smart meters installed because of its two-way communication capabilities.

 

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