PDS4NRJ · Secure Personal Data Services for Efficient Home Energy Management

With the convergence of mobile communications, sensors and online social networks technologies, we are witnessing a dramatic increase in the creation and consumption of personal data. Such data is volunteered by users, automatically captured by sensors or inferred from existing data. They represent an unprecedented potential for applications and business. This is especially true for the energy system, where smart meters and home automation systems promise to deliver significant savings on the path to a low carbon society. Until now, the enthusiasm for new opportunities has thwarted privacy concerns. Nevertheless, the risk of a backlash is growing as new devices and new services bring us closer to the dystopias described in science fiction literature. The key challenge is to improve the control that users have over their personal data. More specifically, as the World Economic Forum pointed out, there is a need for a data platform that allows users to share their personal data – specially their home energy consumption data -- while retaining some form of control over who accesses this data (access control) and more importantly how it is used (usage control). This project, called PDS4NRJ, is based on the insights that (a) secure personal data management can be radically improved with the advent of secure hardware embedded on personal devices at the edges of the Internet, and (b) that a secure personal data management infrastructure should be applied in the context of smart buildings. Our overall objective is to define a new form of decentralized infrastructure for sharing smart meter data with access and usage control guarantees. The PDS4NRJ project is a unique opportunity for Philippe Bonnet, currently associate professor at ITU (Denmark), to become a leading expert in the field of secure personal data management under the supervision of Prof. Pucheral from INRIA (France).""