Team for Research in
Ubiquitous Secure Technology

Citation
Mikhail Lisovich, Stephen Wicker. "Power Consumption Monitoring - an Emerging Threat to Privacy". Unpublished article, 2008.

Abstract
The collection of power consumption data in current and future demand-response systems creates serious privacy concerns. In a lax regulatory environment, the detailed household consumption data gathered by advanced metering projects can and will be repurposed by interested parties to reveal personally identifying information, including an individual's activities, preferences, and beliefs. To develop this claim, we begin with an overview of demand-response technologies and their deployment trends. We formalize the notion of privacy and discuss the relevant legal precedents. A list of the types of personal information that can be estimated with current and upcoming monitoring technologies is then developed. To support our list, we conduct a small-scale monitoring experiment on a private residence. Our results show that personal information can be estimated with a high degree of accuracy, even with relatively unsophisticated hardware and algorithms. We discuss the implications of our results for future demand-response projects. Our paper concludes with guidelines for data-handling policies that ensure the protection of privacy.

Electronic downloads

• HTML

  Mikhail Lisovich, Stephen Wicker. <a
  href="http://www.truststc.org/pubs/338.html"
  ><i>Power Consumption Monitoring - an Emerging
  Threat to Privacy</i></a>, Unpublished article, 
  2008.

• Plain text

  Mikhail Lisovich, Stephen Wicker. "Power Consumption
  Monitoring - an Emerging Threat to Privacy".
  Unpublished article,  2008.

• BibTeX

  @unpublished{LisovichWicker08_PowerConsumptionMonitoringEmergingThreatToPrivacy,
      author = {Mikhail Lisovich and Stephen Wicker},
      title = {Power Consumption Monitoring - an Emerging Threat
                to Privacy},
      year = {2008},
      abstract = {The collection of power consumption data in
                current and future demand-response systems creates
                serious privacy concerns. In a lax regulatory
                environment, the detailed household consumption
                data gathered by advanced metering projects can
                and will be repurposed by interested parties to
                reveal personally identifying information,
                including an individual's activities, preferences,
                and beliefs. To develop this claim, we begin with
                an overview of demand-response technologies and
                their deployment trends. We formalize the notion
                of privacy and discuss the relevant legal
                precedents. A list of the types of personal
                information that can be estimated with current and
                upcoming monitoring technologies is then
                developed. To support our list, we conduct a
                small-scale monitoring experiment on a private
                residence. Our results show that personal
                information can be estimated with a high degree of
                accuracy, even with relatively unsophisticated
                hardware and algorithms. We discuss the
                implications of our results for future
                demand-response projects. Our paper concludes with
                guidelines for data-handling policies that ensure
                the protection of privacy.},
      URL = {http://www.truststc.org/pubs/338.html}
  }
  

Posted by Mikhail Lisovich on 31 Mar 2008.
Groups: trust
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