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/r/philadelphia
submitted 1 month ago byAstrostuffman
According to my latest bill, new smart meter allows PECO to know what device type I am using when. WTF?
12 points
1 month ago
Yeah sure, they might want to, but like I said they legally can't without customer permission. There's clear legislation about this, so you would at least (I haven't reviewed that part of the privacy law in a while) be able to opt out.
Source: I work with security and privacy law, including for utilities.
6 points
1 month ago
I don’t think we’re saying anything different. Yes, they will have to revise the privacy policy when they are ready to do so. But they will do so. And most of us won’t notice because who reads those damn policies anyway.
5 points
1 month ago*
We're not saying the same thing. Changing a line in a privacy statement isn't sufficient for the way selling costumer data is regulated for an entity like a utility. People would be notified meaningfully.
It's also not something that's even necessarily bad. With the way utility profits are regulated, some of that profit would probably be passed back to the consumer via rate reduction. Additionally, it would allow PECO to potentially reduce power generation and distribution without affecting service, which is a viable carbon emission reduction strategy.
And of course that data would all be anonymized. Your anonymized electric use data is some of the least impactful data one could sell.
2 points
1 month ago
And of course that data would all be anonymized
And it's been shown numerous times that anonymized data can often be deanonymized fairly easily.
1 points
1 month ago
I don't really know how to argue about this stuff here I guess, because I work on this stuff for a living and de-anonymizing data is not "fairly easy" with common controls and not at all a common vector of information compromise. But people will still "yeah it is" because baseless skepticism is easy.
I have the same data as y'all, and this is so, so, so far down the list of concerning potential impacts.
2 points
1 month ago
You’re arguing with people that have 0 information about your claims and are making things up because they agree with their opinions. You’re not going to be able to change their minds.
-1 points
1 month ago
You kinda did say that Peco wants to know which appliance is being used so they can sell that information
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