The illegal access of 179,000 Toronto Hydro e-billing accounts last week may be written off by some as just another privacy breach in an increasingly interconnected world, but it also raises a red flag in the rush toward the “smart grid.”
Customer information taken in this case included names, addresses, customer account numbers and some billing information, all building blocks for anyone serious about committing identity theft. “Nobody knows if it was a rogue employee or somebody else. It’s a big question mark,” says Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner, in an interview.
To its credit, Toronto Hydro was quick to act. But Cavoukian, who is investigating the breach, sees it as a wake-up call of sorts as utilities begin to modernize their networks and embrace communications technologies to better interact with customers.
She mentions Google and its plan to work with certain utilities – Toronto Hydro included – to demonstrate its new residential energy management tool, Google PowerMeter. Are the proper policies in place, for example, to make sure your personal information as a customer is protected when it’s handed over to Google?
“There needs to be a wall between Toronto Hydro customer information and Google being able to take that and connect it with other information Google possesses that may be linked through your Gmail account,” she says. (Disclosure: I co-authored a book on data privacy with Cavoukian in 2002)
Her concern could just as easily extend to Microsoft and its new energy management tool, Hohm. Or the dozens of similar, much more advanced applications that will use two-way broadband and wireless networks to gather customer data, including energy use, for highly detailed analysis and feedback.
“The smart grid is a good idea, and I’m certainly in favour of it. But the focus is so much on controlling energy use that I think the privacy issue is a sleeper; it’s not top-of-mind,” Cavoukian says.
That was the same message heard Friday at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. That’s where Mike Davis, a security consultant with IOActive Inc. in Seattle, showed how someone could hack into a smart meter and install a computer worm that could spread to other smart meters used by homes and businesses connected to a local distribution hub.
via TheStar.com | Business | Smart grid saves power, but can it thwart hackers?.
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