The next Big Data threat to our privacy may come from the electricity we consume in our homes.
“Smart” online power meters are tracking energy use — and that data may soon be worth more than the electricity they distribute.
The Department of Energy is publishing in January the final draft of a voluntary code of conduct governing data privacy for smart meters, 38 million of which have already been installed nationwide. The meters gather information about household electricity consumption and transmit it wirelessly at regular intervals to the supplier.
But, despite the voluntary code, critics fear consumers will still be cajoled or conned into giving up their data, not just to power companies but to third-party data aggregators.
Too much money is at stake, they say.
And the huge profits to be made could upend the business model of energy utilities.
“I think the data is going to be worth a lot more than the commodity that’s being consumed to generate the data,” said Miles Keogh, director of grants and research at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
All sorts of inferences about people’s private lives are potentially available from detailed energy consumption data.
The number of people inside a house.
Daily routines.
Degree of religious observance.
Household appliance usage.
Even, according to two German hackers, what’s on the television, given a fast enough meter refresh rate.
“Very sensitive information can be revealed about homes, and homes are the most sacred privacy environment,” said Nancy King, an Oregon State University business law and ethics academic who’s studying smart meter deployments.
Access and control of that energy usage data will be key, she added.
“Most consumers are just unaware about how their data feeds into the Big Data machine and are powerless to do much about it.”
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