Telecommunications: master-metering: data security.

(1) The California High Speed Internet Access Act of 1999, among other things, requires the Public Utilities Commission to monitor and participate in a specified proceeding of the Federal Communications Commission addressing whether to require incumbent local exchange carriers, as defined, to permit interconnection by competitive data local exchange carriers, as defined, at any technically feasible point, to permit those competitive local exchange carriers to provide high bandwidth data services over telephone lines with voice services provided by incumbent local exchange carriers. This bill would repeal the California High Speed Internet Access Act of 1999. (2) Under existing law, the commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. An electrical corporation is defined as including every corporation or person owning, controlling, operating, or managing any electric plant for compensation within this state, except where electricity is generated on or distributed by the producer through private property solely for its own use or the use of its tenants and not for sale or transmission to others. Existing law requires that, when gas or electric service is provided by a master-meter customer to users who are tenants of a mobilehome park, apartment building, or similar residential complex, the master-meter customer charge each user a rate not to exceed the rate that would be applicable if the user were receiving gas or electricity, or both, directly from the gas or electrical corporation. Existing law creates further requirements for master-meter customers and for the corporations that provide service to them, including a requirement that a master-meter customer of a gas or electrical corporation who receives any rebate from the corporation to distribute to, or credit to the account of, each current user served by the master-meter customer a specified portion of the rebate. This bill would exclude from the definition of "rebate" the award of a monetary incentive under the California Solar Initiative for a solar energy system that provides electrical generation to a mobilehome park. (3) Existing law prohibits 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. Existing law provides 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. Existing law provides that nothing precludes an electrical corporation or gas corporation from disclosing a customer's electrical or gas consumption data to a 3rd party for system, grid, or operational needs, or the implementation of demand response, energy management, or energy efficiency programs, if the utility contract with the 3rd party, among other provisions relating to data security, prohibits the use of the data for a secondary commercial purpose not related to the primary purpose of the contract without the customer's consent. Existing law imposes a parallel prohibition, and parallel disclosure and consent requirements, on a local publicly owned electric utility. This bill would require those contracts to require prescribed customer consent prior to the use of the data.