I don't understand the consequences of someone finding out how much electricity I use...

As far as the other aspects of privacy, your personal data is already sent overseas by any company that outsources it's business processes overseas (for example most banks, insurance companies, phone companies, etc). That doesn't by itself mean that your personal information is not secure.

A lot of banks do not use two-factor authentication by default, as do a lot of social networks, online share trading sites, and even Google and Dropbox by default. Two-factor authentication is excellent security, but not having it does not mean your site is not secure.

National Security?? Please explain...

I have had dealings with Origin Energy.I found them to be a toxic entity from go to woe.
I would not trust them,or any electricity retailer,with information they did not need to have in order to carry out their basic function.

Anybody who falls for Origin propaganda in this instance (or any other) is a fool.

CONSUMER PRIVACY INVASION IS TOO IMPORTANT

It is too important an issue to be left to politicians or bureaucrats.

The privacy time bomb is slowly ticking and growing with every smart meter installation.

Smart meters are being rolled out in Victoria, NSW and soon to be followed by all states. This needs to be urgently addressed, consulted on and dealt with before the horse leaves the stable. In many respects the horse is in down the street.

The information provided by smart meters and other smart grid technologies is unique in both its depth and breadth. If its collection and dissemination goes unchecked, such information has to potential to enable significant invasions into consumer privacy.

At the same time, smart grid information is useful for facilitating demand response initiatives and the development of new business models in the nascent energy management industry. In addition to the myriad uses to which this information is already put, an electric utility, the likely clearing house for this information, could bundle consumer electricity usage data into data streams in several ways, tuning their efforts to both protect consumer privacy and supply a new revenue stream to help drive the transition to a model of electricity management rather than electricity sale. (Elias Leake Quinn, Smart Metering and Privacy: Existing Laws and Competing Policies app. A at A-1 (2009), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1462285 )

Although smart meters will eventually deliver enormous benefits to consumers, to the environment and provide enhanced energy security and reliability. They also pose a threat to privacy. Whereas historically a consumer’s consumption data may have been collected once a every three months using smart meters consumer data will be collected and record down to near real-time intervals. From 750 to 8,640 data points a month (per appliance).

SMART METERS CAPTURE INTIMATE COMMERCIALLY VALUABLE DATA

This consumer data can reveal the most intimate details about ones private life and behaviours behind the walls of a consumers home and this data can easily be unknowingly (to the consumer) transmitted from one party to another.

Because of the richness of detail of consumer information collected by the smart meter, this data becomes highly valuable for many purposes other than energy efficiency, most prominently commercial exploitation by advertisers and marketers, such as Google, household surveillance by police, and would bevery useful for criminals attempting to break into homes, execute a home invasion or commit identity theft.

Further to the obvious use of smart meter consumer data and because of the intimate nature of lifestyle consumer data collected by Smart Meter -- services could be used against the consumer interests and expectations.

A good example, an analysis of smart meter data can and will reveal a consumers home activities and daily routines that could assist health insurers or life insurance companies to adjust risk premiums for customers with an observable unhealthy lifestyle.

Advertising companies offering behavioral targeting services may mine data to obtain insights into consumer with energy usage data using data matching can highlight customer activities and habits to enhance targeted third-party advertising.

Worse, the Taxation department can verify that the equipment usage using consumer electricity data obtained to data match against taxation returns. The detailed and revealing nature of smart meter data also will be valuable for surveillance by the various government agencies.

If someone is suing someone they may place considerable value on detailed energy usage data. A fire insurance claim for a damaged appliance can be verified by an insurance company contesting a homeowner’s claim.

If smart meter providers use unsecured paths to transmit this highly private and sensitive smart meter consumption data over the internet. The access or loss of this consumer data could be used by criminals to commit identity theft, or worse. Smart meters enable the accumulation of personally identifiable and behavioral revealing information over very long periods of time. This data gathered by smart meter operators if they are careless, or have weaknesses could, unbeknownst to the operator, exploited by criminals.

The significant privacy risks to consumers are exacerbated by the absence of clear rules that apply to the new smart meter technology landscape. There is a void and a lack of consistent and comprehensive privacy policies, standards, and supporting procedures throughout the states, government agencies, network providers, and supporting third part service providers that will be involved with smart meter management and information collection.

CONSULTATION MUST OCCUR

Currently there is a consultation process in the USA dealing with this around the smart grid and smart meters. Key demands by the “Center for Democracy & Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation” are as follows, which we totally support, and these are, and adapted for the Australian energy market:-

1. AEMO and each State energy licensing agency (eg IPART in NSW, ESC in Victoria) must define the scope of customer energy data that warrants privacy protection by energy market particiapants;
2. AEMO broadly adopt cyber security and privacy principles to ensure that any data obtained by any Smart Meters implementation will provide sufficient privacy protections,

3. AEMO and State regulators require utilities to employ Fair Information Practice principles as part of Smart Meters deployment plans,

4. State regulators must provide additional privacy protections in to be codified by statute that imposes severe penalties for breaches of consumer privacy especially for financial gain such as marketing and advertising;

5. State and Federal agencies before awarding contracts for any smart grid project or smart meter implementation obtain privacy-related quantitative metrics from these providers in their smart meters implementations, and finally,

6. The State agencies and regulators should not wait for privacy standards from to emerge from a COAG agreement or any other Federal government national standard- setting bodies, but the states should adopt FIPs immediately.

“customer information” should include:-

A. traditional personally identifiable information used for normal electricity billing

B. data collected about an individual household in the Smart Meters that is revealing of home life by itself or when analyzed or combined with other information

C. energy usage data collected from the home by entities without the permission or intervention of the energy company, for example google,

Currently governments in Australia, at the Federal and State level, are deploying or will shortly deploy smart meters. I believe that deployment is being undertaken without appropriate consideration of the impact to privacy and human rights.

Smart meters promise to eventually deliver enormous benefits to consumers, the environment and the technology should also provide enhanced energy security and reliability, however it should be recognised that poorly implemented smart meters (and smart grids) do pose a real significant threat to privacy, and therefore impacting on human rights.

Further to emphasize the scope of the problem:-

In a report, commissioned by the Dutch Consumer Organisation, Bert-Jaap Koops and Colette Cuijpers have strongly argued that the functionalities of smart meters violate the right to privacy as guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

On 7 April 2009, the Dutch First Chamber (the senate) declined to approve a Smart Metering Bill that would force all Dutch citizens to have a ’smart’ energy and gas meter installed in their home. The bill made refusing a smart meter to be considered an ‘economic offence’, punishable with a fine up to 17,000 euros or six months’ detention. The First Chamber considered the mandatory nature of smart metering as an unacceptable infringement of citizens’ privacy and security.

Privacy is important,

but i am angry with Origin because of it's Coal Seam Gas interests which is are profit over public good. If Origin have absolutely no regard for the environment and our future, then why would they care about our privacy?

After reading this article and the various comments, my thinking is along the following lines...

For me, the greatest risk to me and future generations is catastrophic climate change.

Tools like Origin Smart help reduce energy usage by:
* providing householders with feedback they can use to reduce their energy consumption
* allow organisations/researchers/companies to view data to help inform policy, products and research

These outcomes reduce energy usage and as such, they reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change.

I am not worried about the following risks:
* Anonymous or hackers stealing my energy data - as I can't see why they would be interested
* My data being sold to corporations - as they would use it create or sell me products (which is hardly the end of the world)
* Thieves logging into my account to see if I was home or not - as it would be far easier for them to watch my house instead of hacking an online system

In the end, I am a bit saddened by the article. For me, it is an example of how concentrating on security concerns actually produce worse outcomes for people than not doing so.