Public utilities: customer privacy: advanced metering infrastructure.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations, as defined. Existing law requires the commission to conduct a pilot study of certain customers of each electrical corporation to determine the relative value to ratepayers of information, rate design, and metering innovations using specified approaches, but prohibits this data from being used for any commercial purpose, unless authorized by the customer. This bill would repeal the provisions relating to the pilot study. This bill would prohibit an electrical corporation or gas corporation from sharing, disclosing, or otherwise making accessible to any 3rd party a customer's electrical or gas consumption data, as defined, except as specified, and would require those utilities to use reasonable security procedures and practices to protect a customer's unencrypted electrical and gas consumption data from unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure. The bill would prohibit an electrical corporation or gas corporation from selling a customer's electrical or gas consumption data or any other personally identifiable information for any purpose. The bill would prohibit an electrical corporation or gas corporation from providing an incentive or discount to a customer for accessing the customer's electrical or gas consumption data without the prior consent of the customers. The bill would require that an electrical or gas corporation that utilizes an advanced metering infrastructure that allows a customer to access the customer's electrical and gas consumption data to ensure that the customer has an option to access that data without being required to agree to the sharing of his or her personally identifiable information with a 3rd party. The bill would provide that, if the electrical corporation or gas corporation contracts with a 3rd party for a service that allows a customer to monitor his or her electricity or gas usage, and the 3rd party uses the data for a secondary commercial purpose, the contract between the electrical or gas corporation and the 3rd party shall provide that the 3rd party prominently discloses that secondary commercial purpose to the customer. The bill would adopt nearly identical requirements applicable to a local publicly owned electric utility with respect to electrical consumption data, as defined.