Sacramento Uses Smart Electric Meters To Spy on Residents

The city’s police consider “high” power consumption evidence of cannabis cultivation.

In our brave new world of smart appliances and internet-connected everything (why would I want my dryer linked to WiFi?), a lot of things are much more convenient. Unfortunately, one thing that's become so much easier is exploiting those interconnected widgets for surveillance and control. In California, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has been caught monitoring people's electricity usage and reporting allegedly suspiciously high consumption to the cops. This isn't even the creepiest use of remote snooping on electricity usage.

Snooping for Marijuana Farms and Finding Electric Wheelchairs

"For a decade, the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD) has been searching through all of its customers' energy data, and passed on more than 33,000 tips about supposedly 'high' usage households to police," according to Hudson Hongo and Adam Schwartz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

In the case of one man, as a result of a tip to police, "sheriff's deputies showed up unannounced at his home, falsely accused him of growing cannabis based on an erroneous SMUD tip, demanded entry for a search, and threatened him with arrest when he refused." The man in that case, Alfonso Nguyen, uses more electricity than some other SMUD customers because he has a spinal injury and requires an electric wheelchair that he charges at home.

The big concern for police is sniffing out illicit indoor marijuana farms. That seems like an odd preoccupation given that marijuana consumption and cultivation are both legal in California. Sacramento residents are allowed to grow up to six cannabis plants at home. But not everybody bothers to jump through the bureaucratic hoops required to get licensed for larger operations. Some just continue to do it the old-fashioned way: under grow-lamps in the garage. Why police would particularly care is an open question, but they care enough to deputize the local electricity utility into snitching on people using "a lot" of electricity, which might indicate a grow operation.

Adding to the peril for anybody who turns on the air conditioning from time to time is that what constitutes "a lot" of electricity is a moving target. Hongo and Schwartz note that "the threshold of so-called 'suspicion' has steadily dropped, from 7,000 kWh per month in 2014 to just 2,800 kWh a month in 2023." Obviously, the lower the threshold, the more likely that people with a variety of needs for electricity will get their doors kicked in by cops looking for marijuana farms.

'Smart' Electric Meters Are Snoops

In a brief filed last week in the California courts as part of an ongoing legal challenge to SMUD's snitching, EFF points out that SMUD's snoopy practices have been enabled by its rollout of high-tech "smart meters" to almost all of its customers. "Unlike their analog predecessors, smart meters scoop up energy usage data continuously, in 15-minute increments, and transmit this data to SMUD wirelessly every few hours. SMUD uses the 'interval data' from the smart meters to discern what might be happening inside its customers' homes."

Among the uses of this data, "SMUD analysts have actively collaborated with law enforcement—and especially the Sacramento Police Department—by providing lists, opinions, and tips in a hunt for SMUD customers who might be growing cannabis." Or might not, if analysts have jumped to the wrong conclusions about why people are using electricity.

SMUD supplies the information in response to police requests—often for whole zip codes, including thousands of customers at a time. It's an ongoing electronic search of people's homes that can result in raids if cops and power company employees think somebody's consumption of electricity is unusual.

Police and SMUD decided that Asians are especially likely to run grow operations. Correspondence acquired by EFF shows them targeting homes with high usage owned by people with Asian last names. In 2022, this resulted in a lawsuit against Sacramento and Sacramento Municipal Utility District over such power-usage-based searches of people's homes. The current brief is in furtherance of that court case. At that time, "86% of assessments done by Sacramento Police were against Asians between 2017 and 2019, even though Asians represent only 18% of Sacramento residents," according to The Sacramento Bee.

"We value the protection of our customers['] private data and work hard to protect that personal data," SMUD officials told the Sacramento Bee. "But under the law, we are required to provide electricity usage data to law enforcement upon request and in accordance with their specific investigation."

Of course, the smart meters used by SMUD and many other utilities mean that detailed electricity usage information is just there for the asking. So, the police ask and go in search of marijuana farms. Often, they find fish tanks, medical devices, and people mining cryptocurrency.

"This data sharing and surveillance is illegal," EFF objects in its brief. "Article I, § 13 of the California Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches. SMUD and law enforcement's home energy surveillance program is an unreasonable search." The group also objects that the data sharing violates a state law that "that bars public utilities from disclosing customers' electrical consumption information except in narrow circumstances."

Whether the courts agree that monitoring and interpreting people's power usage for law-enforcement purposes constitutes an illegal search is yet to be seen. But snooping into our homes isn't the only mischief smart devices can be put to. They can also be used to control electricity consumption.

Smart Devices Can Remotely Control Your Life

Last year, The Washington Post's Nicolas Rivero and Niko Kommenda reported that on one hot day in Texas, when the grid operator asked people to restrict their power consumption, "Ada Garcia, a Houston homeowner, didn't have to touch her thermostat to pitch in. Her utility company remotely shut off her air conditioner nine times that day as part of a power-saving strategy that is already propping up grids around the country as they deal with booming demand and a growing share of unpredictable wind and solar power."

Such power-saving strategies have become common across the country as part of programs that people join in return for lower bills. They let utilities shut off electric vehicle chargers and other devices in addition to air conditioning. That said, not everybody realizes that's what they signed up for. They're often surprised to see their thermostats adjusted from afar.

"Power companies didn't start recruiting individuals until internet-connected thermostats and appliances made it possible to reach into thousands of residential customers' homes and automatically track and change the way they use energy," add Rivero and Kommenda.

So, check the fine print when you have those smart devices installed if you don't care to have your life monitored and managed. And maybe hook your grow lights up to a solar generator and keep them entirely off the grid and out of sight of snoops.