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| | | -- By GreggBadichek - 04 Nov 2015 | |
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< | Section I. Introduction | >
> | Introduction
Smart grid technology would rely on real-time data collected from electricity consumers; this data would sync to each household’s existing internet environment, and would likely contain information similar to that sent out by the average American smart phone thousands of times daily. The true innovation of the smart grid is digital infrastructure, and the data it shepherds. The two-way flow of information between the energy grid and the consumer actuates the information management protocols necessary to make that grid “smart.” That data allows the grid machines to automatically measure, send, receive, and shift energy toward the most efficient allocation of resources, thereby promoting consumer control over energy. | | | | |
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< | Smart grid technological innovations offer solutions to many problems plaguing America’s energy infrastructure. Among these are the nation’s reliance on an aging infrastructure and dirty, climate-altering carbon fuels; the inefficient allocation of electricity; and the traditional centralization of large power plants, which hampers the efficacy of distributed generation. However, smart grid technology would rely on real-time data collected from electricity consumers; this data would sync to each household’s existing internet environment, and would likely contain information similar to that sent out by the average American smart phone thousands of times daily. How can smart grid technology be developed and implemented in a manner that does not sacrifice the privacy of the average user? | >
> | Economics of the Smart Grid
The dumb grid technology requires bulk capacity sales at the wholesale level from generator to distributer, but the retail level from distributer to consumer requires sales of energy at hourly rates. Smart grids will shift power economics by severely reducing demand at the retail level. As a result, utilities selling energy on a smart grid will need to recoup significant capital expenditure while suffering a loss of hourly power sales in the long term. For this reason it will no longer make sense for utilities to operate on volumetric sales with guaranteed recovery of capital expenditure; they will need to shift their business model to one based on providing reliable service for a guaranteed flat rate.
A service industry focusing on reliability will analyze smart grid data to discover gaps in service and areas needing improvement. Thus, using the new software and sensor tech, utilities will collect and scrutinize consumer data with far more precision than ever before.
The security issues herein are similar to those associated with social media platforms: a tremendous amount of user data is willingly given to private entities, which analyze the data to “improve service.” The patron is generally unaware that their information reveals far more about their behavior than merely what they “post.” The developing smart grid would likely feature advancements in connectivity technologies made popular by smart phones. The result of this is the so-called “internet of things,” which relies on data transmission between mundane machines to presumably enhance a user’s interaction with those machines. Each device so connected would transmit user data possibly designating its purpose, location, make, model; connectivity to the smart grid would further pinpoint time and extent of device usage. The aggregation of data from several devices, combined with real time electricity usage data, creates an observable, real-time collage of all activities in a household.
Control Issues
The increasing importance of consumer data on the smart grid means we must ask whether the end points, consumer homes, will serve the consumer or the provider. Serving the provider requires utility control over data storage and personally-identifying qualities; serving the consumer requires consumer discretion in regards to how the software absorbs their information.
Preventing privacy issues would call for consumer control. But this market is not like Facebook: on the one hand, providers must be able to improve the smart-grid, particularly in early stages; on the other hand, consumers cannot “opt out” of smart grid use if their service area-utility uses that technology.
Legal Approaches
Data Control
A solution to privacy problems arising from data control would require anonymization of that data in the long-term. In other words, prohibition on storage of personally-identifying metrics that could show trends over time. That information would likely serve utilities desiring to improve their service, but would cost users privacy that they did not intend to sell. Utilities currently use volumetric data to predict trends more rudimentarily.
A legal regime would therefore either require significant disclosure to users that their information may be so retained. Currently, “internet of things” technology provides wholly ineffectual disclosures, so it is difficult to determine that smart-grid disclosures would be useful. A more successful solution might require utilities to display the precise data that it collects on a regular basis, and field consumer complaints before a fact-finding ALJ.
So long as the operative software on the smart-grid remains obscure, consumers will never be able to understand how their data is collected. As utilities are part of a regulatory compact, and this software intimately affects consumers' lives, the code should be made reviewable under government order. A greater number of reviewers will detect privacy problems and solutions more effectively than the utility alone. Thereafter legal challenges against privacy invasions will gradually create a regulatory regime.
Law Enforcement
Under current Fourth Amendment doctrine, information collected via smart meter communications and retained by utility companies lacks constitutional protection against warrantless search and seizure; placement in the hands of a Third Party essentially removes the reasonable expectation of privacy underlying that protection. See Maryland v. Smith, 442 U.S. 735 (finding no expectation of privacy in phone records “voluntarily conveyed” to a telephone company or utility records “voluntarily conveyed” to a utility company). Law enforcement officials, of course, use utility records frequently in criminal investigations. The utility to investigators of data poured into the smart grid would dwarf that of the dumb grid. | | | | |
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< | Section II. What is the Smart Grid? | >
> | Fortunately, the Supreme Court in Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014), indicated that the traditional distinction between reasonable and unreasonable expectations of privacy is obsolete in the digital context, where the bulk of private data is digital, and flows to countless third parties. Legal challenges to warrantless collection of smart grid data should therefore seize upon the Court’s language. The Fourth Amendment argument, specifically, would likely focus on this data’s total representation of activities in the home—the very raison d’ętre of the Fourth Amendment. | | | | |
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< | Technology | >
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