[backwoods-engineer]

But the meters can be read by anyone with suitable equipment, so that a person could might be able to tell if someone is on vacation from a serious of readings from a meter. This presumes the meters are not securely encrypted.

Yet another ignorant voice sounds off. ALL the main electric, gas, and water metering manufacturers design their equipment with the ability ENCRYPT reading data. We do it. Our competitors do it. Anybody who is anybody in the industry does it.

It's up to the utility to turn it on, but the readings can be encrypted.

[cp124]

Encryption can be hacked.