The articles linked to this post clearly demonstrate what kind of details are available to the power companies using smart meters to monitor our power usage.

Image: National Institute of Standards and Technology

It also covers some of the concerns that the public has with respect to how this data can be used such as providing a profile of a monitored household to determine whether a house is occupied or not. Refer to article here: privacy-on-the-smart-grid

There are some good suggestions on how household details can be obfuscated but it remains to seen whether any of them will be implemented by Power companies.

What should be a bigger concern to the public is that the smart meter combined with smart appliances creates the potential framework to support further monitoring measures in the future that may not be limited to simply turning on/off appliances remotely.

A “brave new world” in deed where it…