The day before yesterday, the engineer came to replace my electricity meter with a new ‘clever’ one. Ok, I do know that they are called ‘smart’ in English!

The national target was to have smart meters installed everywhere by 2021, and since I rent my apartment, I did not want to obstruct progress and refuse the installation.

My issue however is with its use. I have two objections, one on principle and the other practical, and both have to do with privacy.

I will deal with the practical issue first. The application of smart meters is still quite new technology, and in various countries, has not enjoyed a problem-free introduction. Being old-school, I prefer to wait before jumping on a new bandwagon. As long as the meter shows me the reading, nothing has changed. I keep a record of the readings and I have no problem if the energy supplier wants to come and see for themselves what the reading is.

I have a simple home, with one gas boiler for heating and hot water, and one meter for the electricity. I cannot make use of systems to evaluate my usage – there is almost nothing I can do to reduce my use of energy on a daily basis. I do not need a meter to tell me that it would be cheaper to shower less, and I cannot adjust the heating per room, so I use common sense to set the single thermostat to the lowest setting I am comfortable with.

In short, the smart meter will tell me almost nothing I cannot work out for myself. How I live my life – when I use the heating and when I go on holiday – is nobody’s business but my own.

The other issue I have with the introduction of smart meters really does have to do with privacy. Not only have I yet to be convinced that the data obtained from my meter cannot be used by the wrong people, the network supplier has already broken their own rules regarding obtaining my consent!

To be clear on this, there are two other parties involved. The national company that deals with the pipes and cables, and associated meters (network supplier), and my chosen energy supplier, which I can change when I want to. The network supplier passes on data from the smart meter to the energy supplier – as long as the consumer has agreed to this.

The rules say that I, the consumer, must give express consent to this transfer of data. My network supplier already has two black marks here: the default setting upon installation of a smart meter is ‘on’, and they have at no time requested my permission to allow data transfer, neither does their website offer an option to register or amend your choice.

I do make use of online accounts. I have an online ‘My energy’ account with my energy supplier. Once logged in I can see what I have paid per month, and see the results per year. So far, so good.

Which of us has an extra ‘My network’ account? I do not. That figures, because you do not have one! You ‘log in’ each time with your address details and meter number. When you do that, in my case, there is no option to change the consent status for the transmission of data from my meter. Third black mark!

For years I worked for a consultancy company specialised in consent issues with health care. I learnt a thing or two about how consent is supposed to work. A supplier obliged to seek express consent cannot then provide no means of easily indicating that consent or otherwise. They certainly cannot assume consent on the basis of no objection, especially if they provide no mechanism for registering or amending your consent.

I have taken a first step and sent in a complaint to the network provider. Depending on their response, I will consider taking my complaint to the Dutch privacy watchdog: Authoriteit Persoonsgegevens, and possibly even the appropriate ombudsman. Privacy rules are there for a reason, and we let standards drop at our peril.

I will update this post when I have had a response to my complaint.