Google's thermostat could spy on your home life

[Nipuna]

WEST GERMANY, 1972. Security services are hunting down the Baader-Meinhof gang. Knowing that the guerillas favour high-rise apartments as safe houses, they gather data on energy use, looking for apartments that consume little or no power most of the time but pay their rent in full. It pays off: one apartment fits the profile and leads to a series of arrests.

You don't have to be a police target to be nervous of what your energy use says about you – from the hours you keep to your TV tastes. That's why Google's acquisition of a company called Nest rings alarm bells (see "Nest thermostat acquisition is Google's home invasion").

Nest makes smart thermostats that learn your behaviour and adjust the heating accordingly. Convenient and helpful – and a potential invasion of privacy.

Nest's founders say they have no plans to share data on their customers' behaviour. But few believe that will last, given that Google's entire business model is built on scooping up data and repackaging it for advertisers.

On the plus side, the super-connected smart home seems closer. But the NSA spying scandal looms large, and we will need guarantees that what happens behind closed doors stays there.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Tinker, tailor, thermostat..."