Energy Data and Privacy

This month's issue of Scientific American features technology and privacy. This has been a hot topic in the smart metering space as well. How much are we willing to trade off personal privacy, and the convenience and utility of sharing data?

I see three schools of thought when it comes to consumer data privacy:

1) I have nothing to hide. Go ahead and prowl through my weblogs, phone calls, load profile data, and shopping behavior to better market to me, and route out bad guys while you're at it.
2) I have something to hide, so and don't you dare look into my data, or
3) Whether I have something to hide or not, I value my privacy, and don't want strangers mining it to find out what products I might like to buy, or making sure I'm a good compliant citizen.

I like to think I fall into the third category, but I don't do much to protect my own privacy. I blog. I have a detailed public LinkedIn page. My wedding photos are on Facebook, my novice oil paintings on Flickr. I intentionally trade a certain level of privacy for the convenience and perceived fame.

Once I get a smart meter on my house and install a wireless sensor network in my home, I will be faced with similar privacy decisions. Our hour-by-hour, and even minute-by-minute energy will be stored in databases somewhere - and potentially shared with third parties who will find value in the data. If I want the benefit of time of use rates, I'll have to share that data with my utility. We may also have the opportunity to make our use data completely public. "My load curve is flatter than your load curve" is a conversation that utilities are hoping people will have with their neighbors in the not too distant future.

Look closely at a residential load profile, and you'll get a pretty accurate picture of when people are home and when they're away, how many appliances, like Plasma TVs or computers. Combine that data with street level maps, Facebook photos, our credit history, our political donations, and a Safeway club card, our lives are truly an open book to anyone who might have the keys.