US law permits data stored on US servers to be made available when subpoenaed in the USA - any data. Australian data MUST be stored on Australian owned servers on Australian soil. We could make laws preventing the disclosure of Australian data to foreign agencies, but if the data is on a US server (AWS?) US law trumps ours (Pun intended)
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Unfortunately this applies to any country you care to name. US, UK, China, Russia, India, Australia… countries are seeking access to whatever they can get their hands on, and the US is simply better placed because it hosts a stack of data.
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That’s my point. Australia’s data managers often engage foreign-based data storage servers like Amazon Web Services. We need to be smart about this and build our own large-volume data storage servers on Australian soil that cannot be accessed by foreign powers through legal challenges.
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You would need more than one for mirroring data (providing a secondary mirror/complete backuo of the file system in the case of a catastrophic event affecting one storage system).
It also makes sense to have a mirror overseas in another country, in the case of say warfare (physical or virtual) or other hostilities, as such data systems would be a prime target by a foreign power/organisation wanting to maximise economic disruption.
Having reciprocal data mirroring arrangements with a number of countries also makes sense…they store mirrors of Australian data storage, and Australia stores mirrors if their’s.
As data is vital for anything done in a modern economy, hedging one’s bets will be very import for long term security and reliability.
There are many countries which listen into data moving around the net (inc. Australia)…so in many cases the legal challenge may only be relevant for end of the line prosecutions in courts…namely to have lawful data access under public judicial and legislative systems…rather than data collected covertly which is often inadmissible…
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Because of Treaties and shared intelligence operations just because data may only be stored here doesn’t mean it won’t be sent elsewhere with appropriate requests. 5 Eyes etc means data no matter where stored in co-operating Countries become the property of all of them.
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For what it’s worth. I’m very privacy conscious. But I had a smart meter installed about a year ago, by AGL. Each month, AGL emails me a summary of my usage - breaking it down by what devices they think I’ve been using.
Does anyone else get these summaries? AGL calls it an “Energy Insights Report”. I’m surprised nobody has mentioned them in this thread (unless they have). Anyway…
Mine is broken down into dollar amounts that AGL thinks I have spent on:
- Hot water
- Heating
- Pool Pump
- Standby
- Fridges & freezers
- Lighting
- Cooking
- Home entertainment
- Laundry
- Anything else
The above list is the order of devices, top-to-bottom, that I am alleged to have spent the most electricity on.
Fun facts:
- I don’t own a pool. Or a pool pump.
- There is no way in the world that hot water is costing more than heating. My typical summer bill is $100/mth. In winter it’s up to $400/mth. I live in a cold region requiring heaters to be on far more in winter. Or in other words, I know from plenty of experience that the heating is the #1 cost driving up my bill in winter.
In summary, there’s nothing insightful about this report at all.
When I agreed to get the smart meter installed, my impression was that there was little data to glean from studying the patterns of use of my devices. And no other data was being transmitted (as per the AGL terms I read at the time).
Since then, my impression so far is that the data they are attempting to glean, is also highly inaccurate. Meaning that the limitations of the smart meter system, combined with stupid algorithmic assumptions, result in pretty poor data about energy usage.
I too saw the ABC news story the other day, about the data mining. And don’t get me wrong - I’m actually a website developer of 20 years, with my ear to the ground weekly on data misuse, and zero social media presence for that reason alone. And yet, even I thought the ABC news story sounded like ridiculous hyperbole. I was really quite surprised by it.
Hence I came to Choice, and found this thread. To see what others thought.
And those are my thoughts so far.
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It could be entertaining for you to ask AGL how they arrive at their breakdown of your use, especially considering smart meters are not that smart.
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Agree with the privacy issues but here in High Rise would be pleased to just get any individual metering outside of the embedded.
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This is will be based on an average user…they then proportion your consumer usage based on these average household proportions. Not smart monitoring…just thinking you are like every other average John Doe.
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The smart meter database for each electricity company must keep the names addresses for billing purposes. This is a separate arm of averaging.
The technology is advancing rapidly. For billing purposes they need a database of individual names and addresses. Their policy says it will not be sold to third parties. The government is behind the eight-ball. See Amazon and Venture electricity in Queensland (?).
AGREE! I do not think there will ever be a fool-proof protection of any type of data.
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That existed even in the days of spinning disc meters and the bloke with the dust coat and clipboard who came to read your meter. Nothing new to see here.
(Also a ruse and excuse when your house was burgled during the day and the neighbours thought they say the meter reader?)
Concerns for personal privacy and security are not new.
What is new with digital meters is the playing field of investments in digital meter equipment and services. Your retailer may not own your meter. The local supply authority may not own your meter. Someone else might and provide the remote reading data collection?
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yet another example of why restricting Access to Australian Standards is not good for the consumer.
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Macquarie Group own my meter. Not me, not the electricity supplier (Energex), not the retailer (AGL), not the organisation (Plus S) nor its parent company (Ausgrid) that was sub-contracted by the retailer to install the meter, not the organisation that was sub-sub-contracted by the subcontractor to install the meter.
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Ditto.
The guy who came to install ours explained it all. He was employed as an independent contractor to install the meter by … 
Note:
We only need to look at the AEMO generation dispatch pricing for each state, average price and average peak price to … ?
Generation over the previous fortnight averaged RRP of close to 3c per kWh and peak RRP 4-5c per kWh. It takes a lot of creative servicing to bring that up to the 20-25c per kWh retail on top of the $1+ daily connection charge.
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So is the difference per kWh income/profit for the provider?
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Uh… no, absolutely not. It is service costs, as the provider needs to update its infrastructure to manage that incoming electricity and properly schedule electricity demand and supply.
/s (sarcasm for any not aware of the shorthand )
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Its not as simple as equating wholesale $$ to retail $$ per kWh. (we pay after we’ve used the electricity, wholesale is more speculative in advance and on demand combo)
Wholesale spot price can get up to a capped amount of $14,500 per MWh. (it can also go -ve)
Think of it like your household was not connected to water grid and ran of local RW tank supply.
If you properly predict what you’ll use over summer and can stock up in winter you don’t have to buy a very pricey water tanker to come in an fill up (if you buy more than you use during remainder of summer then you have also wasted $$ come winter when your tank overflows etc etc)
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It is actually possible to determine what many of the loads are from the metering, I can certainly identify what the load is from my data logging of my off-grid system. I do have inside knowledge though 
However, AGL (or their load ID’ing computer) may just be hopeless at doing it, and can’t know every device that each consumer has. To have any chance of being accurate, it would need to be sampling quite frequently, seconds, not minutes.
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