Mission:data Coalition and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein submitted a first-of-its-kind draft rule to the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) on data privacy and data portability. The rule, developed over the past six months between Mission:data Coalition and the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), would require electric utilities to adhere to one of the best data privacy regimes in the country while simultaneously requiring state-of-the-art data portability so that utility consumers can access new energy-saving products and services that help reduce monthly utility bills.
In a filing last week for consideration by the NCUC, Mission:data and the AGO submitted a comprehensive, 16-page electric rule. The rule, incorporating lessons learned from states across the country, would require utilities to make energy information portable, consistent with the Green Button Connect My Data standard. This means consumers could elect to securely share their energy usage, account and billing information with energy monitoring smartphone “apps,” voice assistants, or other software tools to more economically manage utility bills. North Carolina has over 2.8 million smart meters that measure electricity use at 15-minute or 30-minute intervals; however, no capability exists today for utility customers to easily port their energy data from utilities to other services.
The rule would also institute best practices around data privacy, forbidding utilities from selling customer information or using contractors that are not bound to protect the security and privacy of customers. “Companies must protect their customers’ personal information,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “Last year, a record number of data breaches were reported to my office. This rule would require companies to do more to prevent a breach – which can lead to devastating identity theft for the people impacted.”
Under the proposed rule, utilities must require all third parties allowed to access customer data to do so securely and to commit to protecting the privacy of customer data in accordance with national best practices, such as the DataGuard energy data privacy standard developed by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The AGO’s privacy work is being led by Jolynn Dellinger, Special Counsel for Privacy Policy and Litigation. Ms. Dellinger is an expert in privacy law. In addition to the AGO, she serves as a Senior Lecturing Fellow at the Duke University School of Law, and an Advisory Board Member to the Future of Privacy Forum.
“This rule is a gold standard for effectively combining data privacy and data portability. Those two objectives can go hand in hand,” said Michael Murray, President of Mission:data Coalition. “We encourage the North Carolina Utilities Commission, as well as other state commissions across the country, to adopt it.”
The rule was filed in Docket No. E-100, Sub 161 and may be accessed here. Under “Docket Number,” search for “E-100 Sub 161.”
