Millions of households at risk from SPYING smart meters as experts slam ‘intrusion’ & warn Brits to ‘be wary’
MILLIONS of households have been warned they could be at risk from "spying" smart meters.
Neil Record, a former Bank of England economist, slammed the "intrusive" devices, warning Brits to "be wary".
The government wants to change the rules so Brits' energy data can be shared with other companies.
They claim it's part of a drive to lower prices and help customers find better deals.
But Mr Record slammed the policy. He told The Telegraph: "Energy companies get a tremendous amount of data from you, and the public should be very wary of increasingly having their household information provided to external agents.”
Smart meters are gas and electricity meters that can digitally send readings to your energy supplier.
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They show you the cost of how much energy you are using so can be used to help reduce your energy bill.
Smart meters can also provide automatic meter readings to your energy supplier.
Most homes have two meters, one for gas and one for electricity – both will be replaced with smart meters.
You will also be offered an in-home display to show you the cost and amount of energy you are using at any given time
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It will update every 30 minutes for gas and in near real-time for electricity.
The new meters at the centre of the data row are expected to be fit in more than half a million homes in the next six months.
Letters are landing on doormats of 600,000 households who are on old meters that use Radio Teleswitch Service, or RTS for short.
RTS is the signal that's used to broadcast long-wave radio channels and is also used by hundreds of thousands of electricity meters.
These old devices charge customers on multi-rate tariffs - different rates for electricity at different times of the day.
They need to be replaced before June 30 when the RTS signal will be switched off for good.
Suppliers have raced to get these customers moved to smart meters before the deadline.
The Sun reported in October how 800,000 customers still needed to make the move, slightly less than the 900,000 at the start of 2024.
Now new figures have revealed 600,000 are still on RTS meters, meaning they have just six months before the big switch off risks them being disconnected.
Anyone on RTS who fails to move to a smart meter could see that their "heating and hot water supply stops functioning as normal".
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “These claims are categorically untrue. The call for evidence seeks to understand if a smart data scheme for the energy sector is needed,
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And if so, how it could ensure consumer protection and support business innovation – delivering customers products and services they want and need.
“Customer data would only ever be shared with the customer’s consent and any data sharing would be protected by stringent security and privacy measures.”
