When appliances spy: Privacy concerns over the smart grid

What do your appliances say about you? A lot, as it turns out. And as efforts continue toward the replacement of an aging electricity infrastructure with a smart grid based on real-time information gleaned from individual household usage, privacy experts warn that strong privacy safeguards are needed.

Flipping a switch at home is more than turning on a light, it's a sign that you're home. Likewise, turning on the television suggests you're not working, consistent microwave use indicates what kind of food you eat (pre-processed, most likely) and use of an electrical medical device implies a certain level of health, or lack of it.

Whether electrical companies--or other parties--will gain access to information with that level of detail depends on whether the federal government builds strong privacy guidelines into the standards the National Institute of Standards and Technology is preparing for smart grid implementation, said Lillie Coney, associate director for Electronic Privacy Information Center before a House Panel on July 1.

"The ability to assess consumer electricity usage information will pose significant privacy threats," she said during testimony before the House Science and Technology subcommittee on technology and innovation. "These threats can include surveillance by government, businesses and criminals," she added.

Smart appliances sending detailed information through a smart grid could make their users even more vulnerable if the devices gain access to the Internet, Coney warned in her written testimony. Such a world is not inconceivable--probable even--since Internet protocol version 6 makes possible a unique IP address for any conceivable electronics device on Earth by creating more IP addresses than there are stars visible in an unpolluted nighttime sky.

But smart grid privacy guidelines are needed even regardless of whether toasters become networked, since the mere fact of smart electricity meters--already at least 19 million such meters are in place, according to an Energy Department report quote in Coney's testimony--increases the amount of personally identifiable real time information the electrical company has over households. Research has already shown how electricity consumption patterns vary among different social groups, such as working adults and senior citizens, and how that energy use correlates to its likely use, such as leisure, housework, cooking or personal hygiene, Coney's testimony states.

Draft smart grid privacy guidelines--which EPIC participated in writing--"offers solid recommendations on how to address privacy in the Smart Grid," Coney said in her written testimony, but sounded a note of skepticism, stating that edits may cause the final document to "bare little resemblance" to the draft, she said.

For more:
- go to the House subcommittee's hearing webpage for prepared statements (no video), or go directly to Coney's testimony (.pdf)

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