The Smart Meter and Our Data Privacy
There is an increasing fear among members of the public that our data is being stored without our consent and then used to control and manipulate us. Last year, in France, there were huge demonstrations calling for people to stop using Linky, the smart meter that was introduced by French energy giant EDF. The concerns surrounding the technology were that the meter would act as a Trojan horse. It would sit in our house and harvest vast amounts of data about us that would eventually be used to manipulate our spending. The data that is recorded by a smart meter consists primarily of our gas and electricity usage. However, experts explain that they are actually collecting far more than this. Patterns in gas and electricity usage can tell analysts when people are most likely to be at home, how many showers households take, and which appliances they use most among other things. This can then be transformed into targeted marketing. In the wake of the roll out of the GDPR, compani...