California PUC May Slow Work on Distribution of Smart Grid Customer Data over Privacy

SAN FRANCISCO -- Privacy and security considerations may require California regulators to move more slowly than planned to require the distribution of smart grid data on customers’ electric usage over the Internet or other networks, said the official handling the work. The issues “are even more complex than I thought, and so we might need more time,” said Administrative Law Judge Timothy Sullivan Friday, speaking just after a panel at a Public Utilities Commission workshop in which consumer advocates, including one from the commission, pleaded with it to slow down because of the mass, detail and sensitivity of the information and what they called a need for careful planning by the PUC and utilities.

Investor-owned utilities make information available on the Web with a day’s lag, the commission said. It made a decision last year that will have to make same-day information to customers and, with their permission, third parties. The PUC’s stated policy goal is providing “access to usage data through an agreement with a third party by the ‘end of 2010,’ and access to usage information on a near real-time basis for customers” with smart meters by the ‘end of 2011.'”

Karin Hierta, a senior analyst with the commission’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates, and Zack Kaldveer, the Consumer Federation of California’s communications director, urged the PUC not to rush its regulatory work to keep to its timetable. They pointed to marketers, law enforcement and burglars, in addition to scammers, as threats to take advantage of utility users if they got ahold of detailed data on energy usage

The Center for Democracy & Technology supports applying the Fair Information and Protection Policies to information on California smart grid customers’ usage, said Jim Dempsey, vice president of public policy. It’s become widely recognized that notice and consent are inadequate to protect privacy, but that’s the framework of California’s Public Utilities Code, he said. Dempsey and the other speakers emphasized that data collection, sharing and retention should be limited at each stage to what’s needed for particular business purposes. Legislative changes should be made to fill in any gaps in the PUC’s regulatory authority, including over third parties with access to customer information, he said. Dempsey said he “was astonished to see” that a bill introduced this week by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., requiring utilities to share customer information with third parties “did not address the privacy issue.”