My energy provider is pushing me to have a smart meter

MultiFuelBurner

ecraig said:

If I were to become a burglar, I think I might, regardless of meter type, track a property and read their meter every day to understand if the number changes by much. I reckon after a couple months I would probably have a good profile of what days the meter changes or doesn’t change.
if I wore an Amazon delivery hoody nobody would suspect me… assuming the meter isn’t at the front of the property.

So, regardless of meter type, people can extract this data quite easily.

And to make the story look convincing I would have a selection of parcels for you that I would rotate daily, with safe place written on them. In fact, it might say “safe place: inside meter” and I might even ask your neighbour if they have a key to unlock it. But most neighbours wouldn’t dare approach someone in public..

Ps, the gas meter box has been my safe place before…

I wonder if that sound better in your head?

Unless a property is way way way away from others a daily read from someone with a hoody or other head dress is available to use to disguise ones face would attract attention.

ecraig

MultiFuelBurner said:

ecraig said:

If I were to become a burglar, I think I might, regardless of meter type, track a property and read their meter every day to understand if the number changes by much. I reckon after a couple months I would probably have a good profile of what days the meter changes or doesn’t change.
if I wore an Amazon delivery hoody nobody would suspect me… assuming the meter isn’t at the front of the property.

So, regardless of meter type, people can extract this data quite easily.

And to make the story look convincing I would have a selection of parcels for you that I would rotate daily, with safe place written on them. In fact, it might say “safe place: inside meter” and I might even ask your neighbour if they have a key to unlock it. But most neighbours wouldn’t dare approach someone in public..

Ps, the gas meter box has been my safe place before…

I wonder if that sound better in your head?

Unless a property is way way way away from others a daily read from someone with a hoody or other head dress is available to use to disguise ones face would attract attention.

I don’t think a criminal would put the hood up!
They could wear any garment of clothing, appropriate for staying warm!
or just a branded polo top!

point being though, someone could just open the box and read the meter if they use that method to understand the utilisation of the property. 

TheElectricCow

MultiFuelBurner said:

ecraig said:

If I were to become a burglar, I think I might, regardless of meter type, track a property and read their meter every day to understand if the number changes by much. I reckon after a couple months I would probably have a good profile of what days the meter changes or doesn’t change.
if I wore an Amazon delivery hoody nobody would suspect me… assuming the meter isn’t at the front of the property.

So, regardless of meter type, people can extract this data quite easily.

And to make the story look convincing I would have a selection of parcels for you that I would rotate daily, with safe place written on them. In fact, it might say “safe place: inside meter” and I might even ask your neighbour if they have a key to unlock it. But most neighbours wouldn’t dare approach someone in public..

Ps, the gas meter box has been my safe place before…

I wonder if that sound better in your head?

Unless a property is way way way away from others a daily read from someone with a hoody or other head dress is available to use to disguise ones face would attract attention.

Yes and the person living in that property might also have a few questions for the masked Amazon employee who comes into their garden to read the gas meter every day for two months…

Netexporter

And perhaps the meters are indoors!

Alnat1

Luckily we have a CCTV camera right above the meter boxes, which are outside, but behind a locked gate. ecraig would need to climb over this each day to carry out their investigations. Amazon guys have previously launched packages over the gate but never themselves. Pretty sure the CCTV system would flag up an intruder very quickly and alert us.

He'd also probably decide to rob us during a sunny week when our solar panels, not visible from the front of the house, had generated all the electricity we needed and our meter showed very little had been used. 

ecraig

But in your situation, alnat1, your smart meter data wouldn’t be useful to a criminal.
Nor would my smart meter data be useful to a criminal.
in fact, this shows how absurd it is to argue that one wouldn’t want a smart meter installed because a criminal might gain some intelligence to understand if and when a property is vacant.
They can only do this by becoming some sophisticated hacker, or working for your specific energy company to gain this data, or by pretending to be a delivery driver, avoiding your neighbours, climbing over a fence and reading the meter. 

In summary, we have concluded, collectively, that this reason to resist a smart meter is bonkers. 

markin

ecraig said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

ecraig said:

If I were to become a burglar, I think I might, regardless of meter type, track a property and read their meter every day to understand if the number changes by much. I reckon after a couple months I would probably have a good profile of what days the meter changes or doesn’t change.
if I wore an Amazon delivery hoody nobody would suspect me… assuming the meter isn’t at the front of the property.

So, regardless of meter type, people can extract this data quite easily.

And to make the story look convincing I would have a selection of parcels for you that I would rotate daily, with safe place written on them. In fact, it might say “safe place: inside meter” and I might even ask your neighbour if they have a key to unlock it. But most neighbours wouldn’t dare approach someone in public..

Ps, the gas meter box has been my safe place before…

I wonder if that sound better in your head?

Unless a property is way way way away from others a daily read from someone with a hoody or other head dress is available to use to disguise ones face would attract attention.

I don’t think a criminal would put the hood up!
They could wear any garment of clothing, appropriate for staying warm!
or just a branded polo top!

point being though, someone could just open the box and read the meter if they use that method to understand the utilisation of the property. 

Or

 have a friend in a call center look up posh streets.

The are some companies that can't seem to sort out E7 on SM so the are legit reasons for avoiding for as long as possible.

MattMattMattUK

markin said:

ecraig said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

ecraig said:

If I were to become a burglar, I think I might, regardless of meter type, track a property and read their meter every day to understand if the number changes by much. I reckon after a couple months I would probably have a good profile of what days the meter changes or doesn’t change.
if I wore an Amazon delivery hoody nobody would suspect me… assuming the meter isn’t at the front of the property.

So, regardless of meter type, people can extract this data quite easily.

And to make the story look convincing I would have a selection of parcels for you that I would rotate daily, with safe place written on them. In fact, it might say “safe place: inside meter” and I might even ask your neighbour if they have a key to unlock it. But most neighbours wouldn’t dare approach someone in public..

Ps, the gas meter box has been my safe place before…

I wonder if that sound better in your head?

Unless a property is way way way away from others a daily read from someone with a hoody or other head dress is available to use to disguise ones face would attract attention.

I don’t think a criminal would put the hood up!
They could wear any garment of clothing, appropriate for staying warm!
or just a branded polo top!

point being though, someone could just open the box and read the meter if they use that method to understand the utilisation of the property. 

Or
 have a friend in a call center look up posh streets

Their data protection systems would notice that kind of activity and log it as unauthorised access and flag it. 

Chris_b2z

Anyone worried about their personal habits being revealed through a security breach can set their smart meter to send monthly readings rather than every half hour or daily.

deano2099

Miser1964 said:

They know the grid will collapse sooner rather than later and are desperate to roll-out 'smart' meters to use dynamic pricing to try and reduce demand when consumers see the surge tariff is £1/kWh. 

That's an interesting point actually. I'm a big fan of smart meters and I do think the good outweighs the bad, but there's a point here that in current emergency situations, the UK has a system of geographical rolling blackouts that is broadly designed to be "fair". Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, the electric goes out in this part of the map at these times.
I suspect, with smart metering, you're right that that's exactly what will happen. They'll increase the unit price in emergencies to cut demand. Meaning the rich can continue to get power while the poor will face longer periods of power cuts.
I know there's other smart meter fans here, what do you think? Valid concern?