In a cutesy marketing video, shown below, global data analytics company Onzo admits to helping utilities surveil and profile their customers — and sell direct surveillance access to their customers’ homes.
“We use this characterized profile to give the utility… the ability to monetize their customer data by providing a direct link to appropriate third-party organizations based on the customer’s identified character.”
Watch Onzo’s rather jaw dropping 90-second marketing video:
[Onzo has removed this video from YouTube.]
So, what does this mean?
See Jerry Day’s excellent commentary on the implications Onzo’s admission and the Internet of Things:
Onzo’s blatant admission comes after years of industry speculation about using ‘smart’ meters for mass surveillance — the main home-access point in a plan of unprecedented scope and profit potential.
In a 2015 interview, a high-level NARUC director signaled the intention and scope of the agenda:
“I think the data [harvested by ‘smart’ meters] is going to be worth a lot more than the commodity that’s being consumed to generate the data.”
—Miles Keogh, Director, Research and Grants, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, 1 January 2015 (view source)
And as far back as 2011, California Public Utilities Commission was using the same “double-speak” language when they changed their rules to normalize meter spying and data-monetizing:
“I support today’s decision because it adopts reasonable privacy and security rules and expands consumer and third-party access to electricity usage and pricing information. I hope this decision stimulates market interest.”
—Timothy Alan Simon, Commissioner, California Public Utilities Commission, 11 July 2011 (view source)
Here’s the full transcription from Onzo’s video:
We are Onzo. We help energy utilities globally to build better relationships with their customers, serve them more efficiently, and summon(?) them in a more effective way.
How do we do this? We take energy consumption data from smart meters and sensors. We analyze it using our patented algorithms. And build a highly-personalized profile for each and every utility customer.
We then tag this profile with the key behavioral, attitudinal and lifestyle characteristics that we identify. We even tag the appliances that we see being used in the home.
We then use this characterized profile to give the utility three things:
- Customer engagement apps that educate the end-customer, build levels of trust, and ultimately, reduce customer churn.
- A detailed description of each end-customer, that helps the utility to provide more appropriate services and highly-targeted sales campaigns.
- The ability to monetize their customer data, by providing a direct link to appropriate third-party organizations, based on the customer’s identified character.
So, from a very thin stream of energy consumption data, Onzo delivers significant business value, for as little as the price of a cup of coffee.
Those perpetrating (or benefiting from ) mass-surveillance and the colonization of the individual are facilitating the downfall of all rights and freedoms in the Western world.
If this is allowed to continue, there will be no such thing as human rights, for you the reader, me, our kids or the human race.
In a unified consciousness, we must participate in the enforcement of accountability and justice upon the individual actors who are causing and profiting from such widespread, unlawful harm.
• About Onzo (YouTube)
• The Role Of Utility Meters In Mass Surveillance (YouTube)
• Smart grid powers up privacy worries (Politico.com)
• California Commission Adopts Rules to Protect the Privacy and Security of Customer Electricity Usage Data (SmartEnergyPortal.net)
• Smart Meters: The Real Reason Why This Is All Happening (TakeBackYourPower.net)
Article is free to re-post in full, with attribution, and without modification.
Thank you for providing this shocking info in such an easy understandable format!
Balto. Gas & Elec. is telling us (after taking our analog meter for now known to be bogus reasons) that no analog meters are available and “transitional” or smart meters are available………..AND NO we cannot buy one from off the internet and have it installed or have them install it.
Soooooo, what other options do we have, except to move off the grid, which is illegal & they prosecute people for?
Dave, one thing that’s clear is that you must assert your terms in writing, because that’s how their system works. And don’t take their “opt-out program” – a false solution, and we know that their “opt-out” meters still transmit. That is a contract offer you do not need to accept. Check out Jerry Day’s process at freedomtaker.com.
I did the opt out because I felt I had no choice. DTE said they would cut my power off at the pole if I didn’t take it. I called them and again they said they did not have the anolog meters anymore. I told them I was having health effects from it even though it was opt out. I said I was waking up about everytwo hours. My heart was racing. All they said was go see a doctor. I told them it must be still transmitting in the home somehow and they denied it.
Denise: in concept, the opt-out can be a reasonable interim measure, accepted “under duress”, while you move things forward in writing to the utility and commission, demanding your right to a safe analog meter, and holding them all accountable.
However, even your “opt out” meter may still be transmitting. This is hard to believe – that utilities would flat out lie about the opt-out meter being radio-off – but check this out, which may confirm your suspicion:
1) https://vimeo.com/169954584
2) https://bc-freedom.com/2016/12/19/no-such-thing-as-a-radio-off-meter/
To tell for sure, you would need to use a RF testing device. The best ones we have found at economical prices are here:
https://takebackyourpower.net/shop/electromagnetic-radiation-testers/
Josh,
I have some questions that i cannot find a clear answer to anywhere else and would appreciate your insight.
1. Do you know if smart devices have a way of identifying themselves, specifically as a digital code transmitted to the smart meter, which is unique to the type of appliance that allows its usage to be clearly identified? I have heard this claimed by some, but i am having trouble finding references to back up this information. Do you know if this is true or something similar, and if so can you provide some references? Thank you.
2. Do you know about some of the analog meters actually having covert wireless transmitters to trick people into thinking they have gotten rid of the wireless device, but in fact still have one? I have also seen this claimed but do not know if it is true, and if so, how widespread these “covert” meters are.
Thank you in advance for your reply.
So!!!
How can we circumvent their smart meter? I am pretty ignorant with electricity but there has to be a way to beat this.
Perhaps a private analog check meter installed inside your home where they can not get at it will block them? Or do we have a Smart person who can provide us with a gizmo to clip over our power cable that confuses the data or maybe even deletes it
You can get a mesh online to block all transmission of EMF as you want. I’d first write a letter to the electric company challenging this element of the smart meters to show your good faith about getting answers from them. Refer them to these videos, and ask for and official comment. It is unconstitutional for them to be doing all this, especially for profit. I’m also going to ask that I receive a % of all profit from any surveillance sales as part of my potential agreement to keep the smart meter. After all, they are making money off our lives and we are not being compensated for this activity. This is fraud, plain and simple.
Great work on exposing this fraud of “smart meters” and their unconstitutional surveillance of our personal lives. Time to begin protesting, or covering our smart meters with a mesh to stop all surveillance. If that doesn’t get their attention, we all smash our smart meters to oblivion, then let the electric companies sort out the loss of revenue…
DEUTERONOMY 28:68 = TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
THE FAKE Je-WISH KHAZAR GIG IS UP !
Trackers invading your privacy on the page you’re viewing right now;
doubleclick.net
facebook.com
google-analytics.com
gravatar.com
vhx.tv
+ a whole slew of derivatives
Your site is so infested with spyware that it needs an exercism.
Thanks, whomever you are. Perhaps you’re pro-industry and or have some other interest motivating you to trying to convey the message that “surveillance is already so prevalent, why bother?”
After all, “resistance is futile” is the message of choice, to instill apathy (in addition to fear of challenging social authorities) — is it not?
The bottom line: the difference is that your rights to privacy about what you do in your own home — offline — has always and will always be protected under the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution, and other laws in other nations. That’s the demarcation. People can always use services like Google, where the service provider will put it in the fine print that they have “no reasonable expectation of privacy.” That’s based on their *outgoing* communications. But for the spying to be functioning on an *incoming* basis — breaching the demarcation of the home — is something else altogether. It’s nothing less than colonization of the home and the individual.
And our very firm perspective is that this should not be tolerated. You are, or course, free to have your own perspective. (But this freedom will, of course, go away, if everyone shared what appears to be your perspective.)
By the way, thanks for letting us know that somehow google analytics is functioning on the site. We don’t use that service. I’ll have that looked into in our next site revision.
I invite you to ask yourself if having any individual rights whatsoever will be of any value to you in your future existence on planet earth as time goes forward. Even if you’re getting huge paychecks to do what you do at this time. Ask yourself. If it’s not important and you continue to wish to sell yourself and everyone else out and truly want to reap the consequences of your actions yourself, that’s up to you. But you owe it to yourself to at least ask yourself this question and consider. Best wishes to you.
I need help so do a lot of people. My power been off 68 days for not paying the opot or ther monthly fine. Cut power at pole no door nock or contrat aep/pso is the ones I have to deal with. I like help to get power back on the way it should.no smartmeters or fines!!
Bo, I’m very sorry to hear of your situation, and like you say, hundreds of others are suffering this as well. Please feel free to send us a concise update including details of your situ, utility name, region etc via our Contact page. We will see if we can help connect you to someone who can assist. Please take care.
This is a sickening assault on our rights as human beings to live free and clear of this crap. Everyone MUST band together to stop this at every level. Between the Smart Meters, the 5G networks they are trying to build everywhere, the current presidential administration with the so called heads of these departments that are trying to ruin the very things they were elected/appointed to protect, the environment ruining pipelines, the mercury in our teeth/water/soil, my God, what is happening to the Human race??? Is everyone so blinded by corruption and power?? Doesn’t anyone THINK, about people , (besides themselves) and how it will affect others before they act? All of these emails I get every day, from so many groups fighting….everything….. so overwhelming. We as a race seem to be just…rotting, destroying ourselves, from the inside out….all of this stuff to “help us”, make things ‘easier’….oh God help us all…..
Pbpossum, I can empathize with your frustration. And so can millions of others. Our strength, I believe, is in the fact that so many are waking up and realizing how ridiculous and in many cases horrendous are the agendas that are being perpetrated against all people and the planet — in the name of control, and of money. As that insane, psychopathic consciousness reveals itself, an increasing number of us are going through cathartic-like processes that draw us closer to the root of the problem. And the problem can only be solved when there is first awareness of it. But yes, it is systemic. And yes, we the people have the power to change it. Keep the faith and remember that the solution is happening through you, and through millions of others having similar experiences. Best wishes.
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For the last four years we have been trying to figure this out. The level of invasion of privacy we have seen makes your reporting look pale by comparison. Phone calls are redirected. Photos are blacked out on my computer and we get sold out as paranoid schizophrenics. Started when electric company did not have easement to cross property.
See the link in the WayBackMachine about the deleted video by ONZO
https://web.archive.org/watch?v=jIDGYxDpwYo
Fairfield, Iowa residents successfully fought their right to retain analog meters with Alliant Energy Corporations providing the electricity. It took time, community meetings, email lists, dedicated organizers and educating people as to the inherent dangers of smart meters, but their success provided rights for people statewide and, hopefully, it will carry over to other utility companies and other states!
Sandra, excellent! Do you have a news/blog link we can share, for this?
Good for you all for standing up against the beast spying machines!! Maybe Minneapolis can ask for Alliant Energy to be our Non-smartmeter power provider!!
Do people always know that they have had a Smart Meter or smart product in their home?? Do the meters look like any other?
Our power companies in Twin Cities Minnesota are Xcel Energy and Centerpoint Energy. Would we be able to call and get a truthful response from these companies if they have ORZO installed? Or if we have s.meters added in without peoples’ knowledge, will we just demand removal ? Will they even be able to go back to the old model meters?
Super video!!!