The dichotomy between smart metering and the protection of consumer’s personal data in brazilian law

• Autor(a) principal: Guimarães, Lucas Noura
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Políticas Públicas (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://www.publicacoesacademicas.uniceub.br/RBPP/article/view/4898
• topic: Energy Law; energy efficiency; smart meters.; Smart metering; demand response; data protection; right to privacy.

This paper investigates the intersection between the pursue of the goal of energy efficiency, by means of the installation and use of smart meters, and the protection of power consumers’ personal data, according to Brazilian Law. Since energy data will be collected and processed by distribution utilities, in order to optmize power supply and power consumption, there is a growing and urgent need to verify in what measure the right to privacy is fullfiled in that metter. The Brazilian legal framework still lacks an extensive and detailed regulation regarding the protection of personal data. On the other hand, the Brazilian regulatory agency for electric energy has issued a Normative Resolution on smart meters, which is, nevertheless, too general and leaves to interpretation important questions related to the legal treatment of energy data. While two Draft Bills on smart metering can be regarded as insufficient to address the matter highlighted in this paper, one Draft Bill on personal data’s protection might fill the regulatory gap. Special attention should be drawn towards the relation between the data minimization principle and the efficiency of smart metering systems, since the efficiency of these technology depends on the amount of data collected and processed. It still remains as an open question, which energy data and which amount of energy data from power consumers suits the data minimization principle.