Promise and Peril in Chicago Utilities’ Smart Grid – NYTimes.com

There are significant privacy issues. A system that knows when people turn down their thermostats can surmise when they have left town, creating a theft risk. A savvy divorce lawyer may discover a wayward spouse recharging her electric car at the home of a man not her husband. …

Now utilities, which are not accustomed to handling data in the way Google and Facebook have, will know a great deal about people’s lives. They might let the information leak. They might package and sell it. They might leave it open to hackers or stalkers.

“Just because I’m getting electricity in my house should not mean everything going on inside my house is going to be exposed,” said Lee Tien, an expert in smart-grid privacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

via Promise and Peril in Chicago Utilities’ Smart Grid – NYTimes.com.