A legal battle unfolding in Sacramento is raising serious questions about privacy, surveillance, and law enforcement tactics in the digital age. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and the Sacramento Police Department (SACPD) are being sued for allegedly violating customer privacy by routinely sharing residential electricity usage data with police in an effort to track down illegal cannabis grow operations.
The lawsuit, filed in 2022 by two SMUD customers and the Asian American Liberation Network, claims that every three months, SACPD asks SMUD to provide a list of homes consuming more than 2,800 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month. Police then narrow the list to those whose usage patterns they deem “suspicious.” According to Adam Schwartz, one of the attorneys on the case and director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, this practice has been ongoing for a decade and has identified over 30,000 addresses.
The case alleges that this is a form of “dragnet surveillance”—a broad, suspicion less search of all customers’ private data. Schwartz and his team have filed nearly 2,000 pages of evidence, which they made public last week. One of the plaintiffs, Alfonso Nguyen, says law enforcement showed up at his home twice, despite his high energy use being related to medical needs.
Originally, the threshold for “suspicious” energy use was set at 7,000 kilowatt-hours. Over the years, that number has been reduced to 2,800, catching more households in the net—many of whom may simply be heating a pool, running air conditioning, or decorating with holiday lights.
Critics argue that this type of bulk data sharing violates both state and federal privacy laws. Schwartz insists that law enforcement should only access sensitive data after developing suspicion about a specific individual—not the other way around.
In response, SMUD stated it has “robust policies and procedures” to protect customer data and only provides usage information to law enforcement when legally required. However, the Sacramento Police Department and the City of Sacramento declined to comment due to ongoing litigation.
A judge will hear the case in October. Until then, questions remain: Is energy use private? Should utilities be allowed to hand over customer data without a warrant? And how effective has this program even been? SACPD could not provide statistics on how many cannabis operations have actually been uncovered through this method.
As the court date approaches, the case could set a critical precedent for digital privacy and how far law enforcement can go in monitoring our daily lives—starting with the flip of a light switch.
