Smart
meters could become a spy in the home by allowing social workers and
health authorities to monitor households, adding to concern at Britain's
surveillance society.
The devices, which the government plans to install in every home by
2020, will also tell energy firms what sort of appliances are being
used, allowing companies to target customers who do not reduce their
energy consumption.
Privacy campaigners have expressed horror at the proposalss, the
Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) says there is
theoretically scope... for using the smart metering communications
infrastructure to enable a variety of other services, such as monitoring
of vulnerable householders by health authorities or social services
departments.
It adds: Information from smart meters could also make it possible
for a supplier to determine when electricity or gas was being used in a
property and, to a degree, the types of technology that were being used
within the property. This could be used to target energy efficiency
advice and offers of measures, social programmes etc to householders.
Guy Herbert, general secretary of NO2ID, said: Information from
smart meters might be useful to energy providers and perhaps even their
customers, but there's no reason for any public authority to have access
to it – unless they've a warrant to do so. This document is a prime
example of government efforts to shoehorn data sharing and feature creep
into every new policy. For example, it suggests that NHS or social
services could use the system to monitor 'vulnerable householders', or
that companies could use the system to spam customers with adverts for
their services – having paid the government for the privilege, no doubt.
The DECC document adds households could even have their power to some
appliances turned off remotely to help the national grid if there is too
much demand. It says: In terms of potentially intrusive non-physical
behaviour unrelated to data, smart metering potentially offers scope for
remote intervention such as dynamic demand management, which is designed
to assist management of the network and thus security of supply. This
could involve direct supplier or distribution company interface with
equipment, such as refrigerators, within a property, overriding the
control of the householder.
The Information Commissioner's Office said it had already discussed
the issue of smart meters with some suppliers, including Eon, Scottish
Power and British Gas. A spokesman said the ICO would continue to
maintain a close dialogue to ensure that their introduction does not
compromise customers' privacy. He added: Important issues include
what information is stored on the meters themselves, in particular
whether information identifying the householder will be held. In any
event energy companies will clearly need to hold records linking meters
with householders and all the information must be held in line with the
requirements of the Data Protection Act.
The
Times has reported that the £8.1 billion rollout of smart meters in Britain
could be knocked off course unless the Government and Ofgem, the energy
regulator, act urgently to convince the public that the information provided by
the meters will be held securely.
