I’m usually pretty cautious around “smart” stuff that lets organisations spy on you but I somehow didn’t consider the smart meter.

When are you usually away from home? Did you get a good night’s sleep or did you drive while sleep deprived? What time did you leave your home? Did the time it took you to get from to your workplace mean that you broke the speed limit to get there? Or, in a custody battle: Have you ever left your 11 year old child home alone? How often, and for how long? If you are claiming benefits while looking for work, can you explain why you have been away for a couple of days? These are just a range of questions that energy consumption data can answer, or at least guess: maybe you just fell asleep with the lights on, but data is against you and it’s now up to you to demonstrate that you didn’t drive while sleep deprived.

A good summary of ‘why you should give a shit’!

Smart meters were never going to be a real benefit for energy users, only a method to extract more revenue and impose more control over them. Being co-opted as another method of government surveillance is yet another problem they have caused.

following the highly-politicised appointment of the new Information Commissioner, the ICO adopted a new strategy for public sector enforcement that relies on public shaming and “very angry letters” rather than legally binding enforcement actions and penalty fines

Oh look, it’s another regulator being kneecapped. I really hope Starmer will consider giving these groups some teeth again.

“the government’s at it again” is a good slogan to sum up the last 14 years.