Bc Hydro Privacy Case Study

PRIVACY – 6,7,10,12,13

The privacy concerns of smart meters around the consumers cannot be ignored. There are three main privacy concerns from consumers.

One of the concerns is that consumers afraid that the smart meters work as wiretaps that release their behaviors and life styles by hourly electricity consumption data collection. They concerns the interval of data collection is too frequently that they feels like being monitored every moments^[1]. Although BC Hydro clarify on its official website that the smart meters cannot identify the behaviors of households^[2], also the hourly data collection is for BC Hydro to understand and plan better for different demands during different times of the days, the consumers do not buy it.

The second concern is that consumers wonder that if BC Hydro and its contractors will improperly use, failed to protect or even sell the their personal information to third parties. BC Hydro explains that it only use personal information for bills and it have a multiple layers system^[3] to protect the data secure. In addition, BC Hydro works closely with BC privacy commissioner’s office and manages private information under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act^[4].

Another concern is that consumers wonder how BC Hydro would protect the data and smart meters against viruses and hackers. BC Hydro did do something, such as upgrade the smart meters, and hire hackers^[5] to test the smart meters and privacy systems.

The key problem is that BC Hydro is filtering the information to the public by its expert and information powers as well as the households are selective perceiving the information they got with bias of BC Hydro. As BC Hydro is monopoly of supplying electricity in British Columbia, the huge size of the company makes the communication with its consumers harder. More specifically, BC Hydro uses electronic ways for communication, which could lead to misunderstanding and conflicts. Lack of explanations by BC Hydro makes consumers cannot fully trust it. In addition, many opponents do a lot of researches about the disadvantages of installing smart meters for consumers and spread them everywhere to incur negative public opinions of the program, therefore consumers may tend to have anchoring bias of BC Hydro and selectively perceiving those information.

BC Hydro does not have enough information about smart meters install program on its official website, so consumers do not get comprehensive information and direction that how would the data and personal information being collect and protected. Similar as BC privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham says in the report^[6], BC Hydro should give more effort to improve its web pages and paper notices to consumers in order to give out fully information and explanation of privacy issues. However, these are not enough because these kinds of communications would cause misunderstanding. BC Hydro should not just answering frequently asked questions on its official website, it can set up a group of employees for answering people’s questions by call, email, mail, or even face-to face. Develop different types of communication will help BC Hydro to reduce conflicts and negative public opinions, become more transparent and improve its credibility among the communities.