Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what requirements apply to South Staffs Water’s collection, retention and use of smart-meter consumption data; at what frequency household usage will be recorded; which third parties may receive identifiable or pseudonymised information; and whether customers will be able to access the same level of usage data used by the company for billing, leakage detection and demand-management purposes.

Water companies must comply with applicable data protection and privacy legislation when collecting and processing customer information. The collection, retention and operational use of smart meter data are matters for individual water companies, subject to relevant legal and regulatory requirements.