Denounced by its electric meter. According to Ars Technica, several homes in the urban area of Sacramento, California, have been subject to searches motivated by a doubtful electricity consumption. To the point of reminding the police that the inhabitants of these homes cultivated marijuana plants.
How did the Police alert? So that ? Why? On what foundations? Many questions and certainty, these interventions doubt the exploitation of electricity consumption data. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an NGO of Internet Rights, especially accuses the local electricity supplier, the District of Municipal Public Services of Sacramento (SMUD), to provide consumers without the consent of consumers, their statements to the authorities.
A “hidden” collaboration
Back. In 2020, two Californians were surprised to see the local sheriff attendees land at home. The latter asks to look for your accommodation. The reason, an abnormally high electrical consumption.
Thanks to the information provided by the smart meters installed in their home, the authorities suspected that the two people use a lighting system dedicated to the production of marijuana. The SMUD would have voluntarily provide the data to the authorities.
It turns out that neither of the two men cultivated it. The first used a heating system to maintain its body at a normal temperature after a serious injury. The second fell from cryptocurrencies.
According to the EFF, the supplier and the authorities have tried to hide their collaboration for a long time. As with these two Americans, the SMUD has reported several thousand homes for several years, the EFF warned. In a request filed before the Supreme Court of California, the NGO specifies:
The EFF adds that SMUD clients have agreed at no time to “remember and that their information is revealed.” At least, rejecting the supplier’s privacy policy was not so simple according to the NGO. It was necessary to find “a non -sorry link at the bottom of the SMUD site.”
Link meters, a monitoring tool?
The evocation of an inevitably connected counter makes you think of the implementation of link meters in France, which leaves many perplexed citizens. As with the SMUD in the United States, is it possible that Enedis and the authorities collaborate?
In theory, yes, this is possible and even legally supervised. “Police authorities have the right to request information as part of an investigation,” said Tech & Co Eric Barbry, a lawyer specialized in a new technology law. Enedis must provide consumption data of a house if justice or police request it.
Now in the other direction, things are more nuanced. Can you directly report a subscriber to the police? Then it is necessary to distinguish between two cases: the detection of suspicious fraud and consumption.
Fraud, a special case
If, on the one hand, Enedis points out the electrical fraud in his network that can financially and materially affect it, “it is completely normal, as for any operator or supplier, to inform it,” says Eric Barbry.
The manager of the electricity distribution network has recently demonstrated his determination to fight fraud in link meters. Faced with the proliferation of manipulated boxes (which hid part of the electricity consumption), Enedis directed 121 checks in early July 2025. He announced this time that he had counted “more than 100,000 trafficked counters” and deplored a “clear increase.”
Contacted by Tech & Co, the company confirms that “Linky allows in particular to better detect electrical fraud, to guarantee the safety of the facilities.”
“Reporting is legal”
When it comes to suspicious consumption (for example, a peak in consumption related to cannabis production), the situation is different. Excessive consumption does not necessarily imply that it is a criminal activity as evidenced by the situations of the two Americans mentioned above.
But legally, and in theory yet, nothing prohibits Enedis to inform a suspicious activity on his network:
For his part, the manager is affirmative: “It is not at all [notre] Role “To make an unfounded complaint, he explains.” The data collected by Linky Meders are used exclusively for the management of the electricity network and customer billing. Enedis (and by extension, Linky Meders, an editor’s note) does not have the mission or vocation to monitor the individual behavior of customers, “explains Enedis.
Source: BFM TV
