Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 26 May 2021 to Question 2971 on Energy: Meters, what data is required for regulated purposes, such as accurate billing; and how consumers can monitor and control how that data is shared.
The smart metering Data Access and Privacy Framework protects consumers’ privacy and set outs the levels of access to energy consumption data from smart meters permitted for different parties. The Framework ensures that households have control over who can access their energy consumption data and for what purposes, except where this is required for regulated purposes.
Energy suppliers and networks are permitted under their Licence Conditions to access energy consumption data for narrowly defined regulatory purposes.
Energy suppliers can access data for purposes including billing, meeting a customer request for access to their data, responding to an enquiry or complaint by a customer, and where they have reasonable grounds to suspect and investigate theft.
Energy networks can access granular consumption data to support the safe and efficient management and reinforcement of energy networks, provided they have a consumer’s consent or implement strict data protection procedures approved by Ofgem.
Information must be made available to consumers on which energy consumption data will be accessed and for what purpose.