Yes, the ever-accelerating pace of technological development carries serious privacy implications. Here for your interest are some recent reports from The Electronic Frontier Foundation's DEEP LINKS BLOG >> https://www.eff.org/
The Seventh Circuit just handed down a landmark opinion, ruling 3-0 that the Fourth Amendment protects energy-consumption data collected by smart meters. Smart meters collect energy usage data at high frequencies—typically every 5, 15, or 30 minutes—and therefore know exactly how much electricity is being used, and when, in given household. The court recognized that data from these devices reveals intimate details about what’s going on inside the home that would otherwise be unavailable to the government without a physical search. The court held that residents have a reasonable expectation of privacy in this data and that the government’s access of it constitutes a “search.”
The Seventh Circuit recognized that this energy usage data “reveals information about the happenings inside a home.” Individual appliances, the court explained, have distinct energy-consumption patterns or “load signatures.” These load signatures allow you to tell not only when people are home, but what they are doing. The court held that the “ever-accelerating pace of technological development carries serious privacy implications” and that smart meters “are no exception.”
This is critical precedent. Last year, roughly 65 million smart meters had been installed in the United States in recent years, with 88% of them—over 57 million—in homes of American consumers; more than 40% of American households had a smart meter. Experts predict that number will reach about 80% by 2020. And law enforcement agencies are already trying to get access to data from energy companies without a warrant.
Point 1
After concluding that smart meter data is protected by the Fourth Amendment, the Seventh Circuit next assessed whether the municipal utility’s “search” was reasonable. The court, after weighing the city’s interest in collecting the data with the residents' privacy interest, concluded that the city’s collection of smart meter data in this context was reasonable.
The court explained that smart meters play a crucial role in the modernization of the energy grid, allow utilities to restore service more quickly when power goes, permit utilities to offer time-based pricing to reduce the strain on the grid by encouraging consumers to shift usage away from peak demand periods, and reduce utilities’ labor costs because home visits are needed less frequently.
Critically, the court noted that its analysis would be different if Naperville conducted the search with “prosecutorial intent,” if the search was conducted by law enforcement instead of the city’s public utility, or if the data was more easily accessible to law enforcement or other city officials outside the utility.
The court cited the city’s policy of not providing customer data to third parties—including law enforcement—without a warrant or court order.
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