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The so-called “smart” meters that track electricity usage on homes across Ontario are vulnerable to hacking and privacy breaches, an Ontario New Democrat is warning.

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Toronto Danforth MPP Peter Tabuns plans to table a private members bill to close the gaps he says smart meters could present to homeowners’ security. Around the world, people have been able to break into the electronic monitors of power usage to lower their own bills, steal power or potentially even disrupt the whole power grid.

Though there’s been no such incident reported in Ontario, Tabuns says the government needs to prove its protection of Ontarians’ privacy and the security of the grid.

“We need to have standards, we need to make sure they’re in place, and we need to protect people privacy and their security,” Tabuns said at a press conference Tuesday.

Terrorism is the most extreme example of how the vulnerability in smart meters could be exploited — if someone could use one to access the whole grid, theoretically they could disrupt an area’s power supply. But Tabuns is more concerned about data mining or someone using the information to rob a home. Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk first raised the issue in a report last year.