Smart Meter Data Protected by Fourth Amendment

blogs.findlaw.com...

Smart meter data can tell law enforcement a lot about an individual or household. And though the use of smart meters may not seem like such a huge intrusion upon a person's individual civil liberties and right to privacy, the Seventh Circuit explained that smart meter data does fall under the Fourth Amendment's protections; however, city utilities, generally, have a reasonable purpose for accessing the information and therefore do not need a warrant.

This is a good win for freedom. Technically the info passing through a smart meter can be of much greater detail that most can imagine. A computer that monitors your usage every 5 minutes can glean much info about a person. Using computer analytics and such they can compare your usage to specific items and their unique consumption rates. Thereby positively identifying in almost real time if you are making toast of watching the tube.

Interestingly, the city utility tried to argue that the residents waived their expectation of privacy, especially to third parties, by agreeing to use the smart meters. The court dinged the city here pretty hard though as the city's smart meter program was not actually voluntary and the residents didn't have any choice.

Seems very sad shape to have folks out there trying to forcibly remove your privacy.

There are systems out there that utilize power lines to transfer data and the amount and type of data is not very well monitored. The technology exist to run your internet through your power lines so the limit to what could have been collected was only bound by imagination.

I remember hooking up a grid tie solar system to my electric once. For the first 5 minutes my meter ran in reverse then something kicked in and it would no longer recognize the electric i was imputing. They do not want the use of such unless you buy an even more technical meter that comes with much more regulation.

a reply to: howtonhawky

It's amazing how much data we leak about ourselves all of the time; every second of every minute of the day.

There have been a couple of TV shows that made use of this dense data point cloud as a plot mechanism. Of course the characters have magical access to all of this information. But they can analyze it and develop an in-depth profile of a person of interest; as well as track their movements in realtime.

In real life it's not too much more complicated though. The federal government just has to get a handful of FISA warrants and they can access any data they want.

It's nice to see our right to privacy being upheld in this case. But I'm sure they've already devised a number of ways to get around this ruling.

-dex

a reply to: DexterRiley

But I'm sure they've already devised a number of ways to get around this ruling.

Well anywhere the city has a police force and the city has a hand in the power then they might be able to look at the data without a warrant.

a reply to: howtonhawky

I remember hooking up a grid tie solar system to my electric once. For the first 5 minutes my meter ran in reverse then something kicked in and it would no longer recognize the electric i was imputing. They do not want the use of such unless you buy an even more technical meter that comes with much more regulation.

In most States in the US , you cannot generate 100% or more of your electricity
In some cases it is against the law
Got a bug-out location that I had to ramp back on for that reason