A report from the B.C. privacy commissioner says B.C. Hydro is not meeting the letter of the law as it replaces wired electrical meters with 1.8 milliion wireless ones.

Elizabeth Denham states that the Crown corporation is taking privacy and security seriously as it implements smart meters and a smart grid, but there is room for improvement.

Hydro is required by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to tell its customers the purpose for collecting personal information for the smart meters project. They are also supposed to cite their legal authority to collect such information and provide a corporate contact to answer questions.

“Hydro is not currently meeting this requirement, and we’ve made some recommendations to help them improve their customer notification,” Denham said.

Conversion to smart meters is underway in Kamloops and the project is expected to continue into 2013. Public concerns have been expressed around the cost, security and health implications of the projected, expected to cost close to $1 billion provincewide.

Analysis of household electrical consumption could reveal more about people’s private lives than they want revealed, so Denham investigated after receiving more than 600 complaints and expressions of concern.

Brian Thiesen, who heads a local chapter of Stop Smart Meters B.C., said the Liberal government is in the process of amending privacy legislation, so the report doesn’t surprise him. Bill 3 was introduced this fall without public consultation.

“Within that context, it’s quite easy to understand how they would say things are favourable when the Liberal government is trying to change the privacy laws.”

In every instance he’s seen where an independent security firm has tested wireless meters, problems have arisen, Thiesen said.

“One went to five separate utilities and he hacked them all. Encryption and firewall are fancy terms and they might confuse people.”

Not even top law-enforcement and military institutions have been able to prevent hacking, he added.

Denham’s report focuses on the here and now, but what worries Thiesen and others is what’s in store. He’s convinced there is a hidden agenda to the conversion — variable rates or time-of-use billing for electricity — and that the security/privacy risk will increase as people convert to smart appliances that can be programmed to operate during lower-cost periods of the day.

Hydro and the provincial government have consistently denied that it plans to introduce time-of-use billing, although there is nothing to stop a future government from introducing it.

Thiesen also argues that the province’s electrical consumption is not rising and that the real reason for converting to smart meters is to facilitate the export of power to California and China.

“This is part of the whole equation.”

Denham said her office will continue to monitor the project.