Out-Law News 2 min. read

Energy companies split over decision to delay review of smart meter data privacy framework


Documents newly published reveal that some of the UK's biggest energy suppliers were split over the UK government's decision to delay a review of a data privacy framework for smart meters.

Late last year the government said it would postpone plans to carry out a review of the smart meter data access and privacy framework (DAPF) until some time in 2018 to "enable holistic assessment of the extent to which the framework’s provisions and safeguards are appropriate, whilst avoiding any premature or disproportionate changes to its provisions".

At the time the government summarised the views it received from respondents to its consultation on the proposed delay. It said the prevailing view was that an insufficient number of smart meters would be installed by 2016 to "test the effectiveness of the framework" and that "without industry and consumer experience of the DAPF, any review would not be of sufficient depth and detail".

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has now published some of the individual responses that it received to its consultation. The responses show that Scottish Power and UK Power Networks backed the government's decision to delay the DAPF review. British Gas and EDF were against the postponement.

In its May 2015 letter EDF said: "We are deeply concerned that any findings and recommendations resulting from a 2018 review will happen far too late for a significant number of customers."

The energy company said that the review should take place "before significant numbers of smart meters are installed". It said 16 million smart meters are expected to be installed in UK homes before the end of 2017.

EDF said: "If [the government] were to undertake the review in early 2018, any changes to the standard licence conditions are unlikely to take effect until late 2018 at the earliest. This would leave just two years of the roll-out phase remaining and a consider number of customers potentially disadvantaged. Furthermore, if any changes were to be applied retrospectively this could cause additional and unplanned costs to suppliers."

The views of British Gas echoed those of EDF.

British Gas said: "We do not consider that the reasons given for postponing the review are sufficiently valid, and we believe that there are improvements that can be identified now which could benefit a far larger number of customers if implemented sooner rather than later. A review conducted in June 2018 is unlikely to deliver any changes until mid-2019 at the earliest, when only 18 months or so of the roll-out programme will remain. The majority of installations will have been completed by then, significantly undermining the value of the review…"

"We would like to see a more explicit commitment to considering incremental improvements to policy before 2018 if this is the route that is chosen," it said.

According to the government statistics published earlier this year, there are over 3.6 million smart and advanced meters operating in homes and businesses in Great Britain. The government has committed to ensuring that smart meters are made available to every home and business across the UK by the end of 2020.

Smart meters generate much more detailed data on energy consumption in the home than ordinary energy meters. To reflect the extra granularity of the data, smart meter suppliers must comply with a range of privacy requirements that go beyond what is required of them under the Data Protection Act. The requirements are set out in the DAPF and imposed as licensing conditions.

Under the DAPF, energy suppliers must obtain consumers' consent to collect and use consumption data more at a level of granularity more detailed than daily reads or to use consumption data for marketing purposes.

The suppliers can, under the framework, access consumption data up a daily level detail but consumers must be given the opportunity to opt out of that data collection.

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