Tag: smart meters

When Smart Meters Turn Into Spy Tools

California’s robust privacy protections are facing a critical test as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and community advocates press forward with a lawsuit to dismantle what they describe as an illegal and biased surveillance operation run by Sacramento’s public electric utility.

In a legal filing submitted last week, the EFF laid out evidence that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), which serves more than 650,000 customers, has spent over a decade monitoring detailed home electricity data and funneling it to police without a warrant. The organization calls this an unconstitutional “dragnet surveillance” program that unlawfully invades household privacy on a massive scale.

We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.

“This case is about Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s…dragnet surveillance of SMUD customers’ homes using sensitive and confidential energy usage information,” the brief begins. “The decade-long surveillance violates the California Constitution and a state privacy statute.”

SMUD’s so-called “smart meters,” installed in nearly every home it serves, transmit power usage in 15-minute intervals to the utility multiple times per day. This data, the lawsuit argues, offers a detailed portrait of home life, including sleep patterns, occupancy, and even personal routines. “SMUD analysts can, in effect, use the data to digitally peer into a person’s home,” the brief explains.

EFF alleges that SMUD has routinely handed over customer information to local police departments, including names, addresses, and usage history, without any individualized suspicion or judicial oversight. In many cases, these disclosures were based solely on arbitrary consumption thresholds. “SMUD has turned over…the names, addresses, and electrical consumption information of more than 33,000 customers through a zip code list,” the brief states.

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AI Used to Tap Massive Amounts of Smart Meter Data

The global market for Smart Electricity Meters estimated at US$10.5 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$15.2 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 6.7% over the analysis period.

For utilities aiming to modernize their grid operations with advanced solutions, smart electricity meters have emerged as an effective tool that can flawlessly address their various energy T&D needs in a simple and flexible manner.

Single-Phase, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to record 6.2% CAGR and reach US$11.9 Billion by the end of the analysis period. After a thorough analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the Three-Phase segment is readjusted to a revised 7.9% CAGR for the next 7-year period.

In the coming years, the growth of smart electricity meters market will be driven by the increasing need for products and services that enable energy conservation; government initiatives to install smart electric meters in order to address issues of energy requirement; the ability of smart electric meters to prevent energy losses due to theft and fraud, and to reduce the costs involved in manual data collection; increasing investments in smart grid establishments; the growing trend of integration of renewable sources to existing power generation grids; rising T&D upgrade initiatives especially in developed economies; increasing investments into construction of commercial establishments such as educational institutions and banking institutions in both developing and developed economies; and emerging growth opportunities in Europe with the ongoing rollouts of smart electricity meter rollouts in countries such as Germany, the UK, France, and Spain.

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