Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Dedrick, Stanton Receive NSF Funding for Smart Meter Study

Friday, September 19, 2014, By Diane Stirling
Share
researchSchool of Information Studies

Do people care how smart meters collect data about the electricity they use?

That’s one of the questions a new National Science Foundation-funded grant will permit two School of Information Studies (iSchool) professors to explore in their project, “Data Privacy for Smart Meter Data: A Scenario-Based Study.”

Jason Dedrick

Jason Dedrick

Associate Professor Jason Dedrick and Professor and Senior Associate Dean Jeffrey Stanton, principal investigator and co-principal investigator for the study,  have been awarded $266,101 in NSF Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research funds to study the issue over the next three years.

“Smart meters” capture data on household energy use at frequent (typically 15-minute) intervals. That helps utilities automate meter reading and billing, detect and respond to outages, and match supply and demand. However, such data collection appears to create some significant privacy concerns for some customers, Dedrick explains.

In order to assess consumers’ perspectives of those concerns, Dedrick and Stanton will be creating realistic scenarios to test in focus groups and through questionnaires. Their goal is to gauge which issues consumers perceive as privacy risks, and to assess the degree of concern they have about various types of data-collection and data-breach situations. Their study also will examine how utilities currently protect consumer data and how well the practices and policies correspond to users’ privacy concerns.

Dedrick and Stanton have been studying smart grid electrical use and adoption for the past three years, working to identify the motivating factors, obstacles and challenges facing utilities and consumers regarding the technology’s adoption. One of the issues inhibiting greater adoption, they have found, is that smart meter use permits others to view usage patterns, including signatures left by the household’s varied devices and appliance. That added detail could present privacy issues based on how the collected data is used, stored and shared, Dedrick explains.

Jeffrey Stanton

Jeffrey Stanton

While most consumers don’t have a high degree of awareness about that data collection, the scenarios being tested will draw a clearer picture about the types of issues that do concern them, and to what degree, Dedrick says. He noted that some of the testing scenarios will be routine, and others will present more far-fetched potential outcomes of data-sharing. For instance, if one member of a divorcing couple engaged in a child-custody battle obtained meter data showing that the spouse’s household’s Xbox was in use 18 hours a day, that parent could form conclusions about the quality of parenting the other parent is providing, he says. “That might be the extreme, but it illustrates how innocent-looking data, put into different contexts, can be of concern or can be misinterpreted, with people drawing inferences from the data that might not even be accurate.”

Once the results of the study are known, the researchers will meet with utility company representatives to discuss how utilities can balance consumers’ concerns with business objectives and regulatory constraints, the professors say.

Although there are 45-50 million smart meters in use among electric customers today, only a small segment of that population is aware of the meter’s presence, and even fewer take advantage of the meter’s data to monitor their electricity use, according to Dedrick. Whether or not someone is interested enough to check their usage, the study is important to the average user, he says.

“I think it matters that people know how their data is being collected and used and that the companies and government agencies who are collecting, using, and sharing it are conscious of consumer and individual concerns,” Dedrick says. “There’s a much broader debate going on about who owns data and what responsibilities companies and individuals have, and what rights to privacy we have.”

  • Author
  • Faculty Experts

Diane Stirling

  • Jason Dedrick

  • Recent
  • Drama Department to Virtually Present New Theatrical Work Inspired by University’s 150th Anniversary
    Saturday, January 23, 2021, By Erica Blust
  • Professor Rahman Awarded Google Grant to Engage Underrepresented Students in Computing Research
    Saturday, January 23, 2021, By Alex Dunbar
  • Special Collections Research Center Launches Latin American 45s Digital Collection
    Saturday, January 23, 2021, By Cristina Hatem
  • VPA Faculty to Present World Premieres at Society for New Music Concert Jan. 31
    Saturday, January 23, 2021, By News Staff
  • ‘Democracy on Trial: Can We Save It?’
    Friday, January 22, 2021, By News Staff

More In STEM

Professor Rahman Awarded Google Grant to Engage Underrepresented Students in Computing Research

Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) Professor Farzana Rahman received a 2020 Google exploreCSR award to fund the development of an undergraduate student engagement workshop program, Research Exposure in Socially Relevant Computing (RESORC). The RESORC program will provide research opportunities…

Arts and Sciences Welcomes New Director of Forensics Kathleen Corrado

After 25 years working in the field of forensic science and over two decades of executive experience as a laboratory director, Kathleen Corrado has been named director of the Forensic and National Security Science Institute (FNSSI) in the College of…

Hehnly Lab Awarded $1.2M NIH Grant to Research Critical Tissue Formation

A key process during the development of an embryo is tissue morphogenesis, where the number of cells in an organism increase through cell division and tissues begins to take shape. Heidi Hehnly, assistant professor of biology, has been awarded a…

The Role of Digital Forensics and Tracking Down US Capitol Riot Criminals

With just under a week left before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony, investigators and law enforcement agencies across the country are working speedily to identify as many of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot offenders as they can. Knowing exactly…

A&S Researchers Awarded $2.1M Grant to Study Causes of Congenital Heart Defects

Congenital heart defects are the most common type of birth defect, affecting nearly 1 percent of births in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors have been unable to lower that number…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2021 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.