Residential utility customers have a legitimate expectation to preserve individual and behavioral privacy with regard to energy-related or water consumption data collected by the utility. Credible government reports and security experts have explained that there are privacy concerns that the granular data collected by smart meters will reveal the activities of people inside of a home by measuring their usage frequently over time. Furthermore, there is deep concern that inadequate cyber security measures surrounding the digital transmission of smart meter data will expose such data to misuse by authorized and unauthorized users of the data. Residential utility customers have currently only surrendered a privacy interest to the extent necessary to account for monthly billing by the utility, unless otherwise explicitly granted. Normally, only one energy or water usage measurement per month is necessary for the billing process.
Seems like a bit of a reach to go from knowing which appliances you use and when, to identity theft and harassment by your landlord.
Besides, I feel like even if your landlord was able to get this info (in the US, utilities are surprisingly protective of account access), they’d be able to do much more just by virtue of having physical access to the property.
The burglary or home invasion angles I can see, but it actually working out like that seems extremely unlikely.