A data pseudonymization protocol for Smart Grids

Privacy and protection of user-related data is of paramount importance in Smart Grid scenarios: on one hand, information regarding customers´ personal habits can be inferred by analysing metering data; on the other hand, detailed knowledge of consumption measurements is crucial for the timely management of energy distribution, provisioning, and forecasting. This paper proposes a pseudonymization protocol for data gathered by the meters: the protocol relies on a network infrastructure that involves a set of Privacy Preserving Nodes (PPNs). These nodes perform data pseudonymization without having access to the measurements, which are masked by means of a secret splitting scheme. Multiple entities such as utilities and third parties are allowed to collect pseudonymized data, which maintain their temporal sequentiality along a time window of finite duration, but cannot relate them to the identities of the users that generated the data or to the data generated by the same user in the preceding or following time windows. The paper also provides an evaluation of the security and of the performance of the protocol.