What happens with info shared with Victron?

Q&A and troubleshooting
1

Hello All,

Don’t want to create problems, just want to raise an issue that at some point in time could became hot.

In a previous discussion with @nickdb the following issue was raised

Then I realized something…
There are thousands and thousands of Victron systems with GX devices that collect information from all over the world…
And those information could be used for:

  • have an idea of weather in certain areas all over the globe
  • have an idea of the grid quality of certain areas all over the globe
  • have an idea about consumption habits of certain areas all over the globe
  • have an idea about how populated are certain areas all over the globe
  • have an idea of financial status of a certain family based on the complexity of the system
  • have an idea of consumption habits of a certain family
  • have an idea of when a family sleeps and daily habits
  • have an idea of when family members are at work and nobody is at home
  • have an idea when a family is in vacation and nobody is at home
  • etc. etc.

All those things can be shared with third parties like weather companies, companies that make statistics, hell, even with government and military…
So…

What’s the VIctron position on this?
Is there a section, at least for Europe, for GDPR consent?
A section where an user could acknowledge that if he voluntary shares his information with VIctron, what Victron could do with that information?

Thanks for listening.
Alex

2

Telemetry and personal information are two very different data classifications.
So the regs are quite different.

There is often a misinterpretation of what defines personal information particularly when comparing the legal vernacular to the layman’s interpretation.

No EU based company will be taking these responsibilities lightly.

Though, a more detailed response is way beyond my pay grade.

3

OK, say it telemetry.

But that telemetry could characterize my personal habits.
And my personal status.
And my region / country status.
And so on and so forth…

Talking from experience, a goldmine for government and military, now in an age with so many conflicts…

I am playing devil’s advocate here, don’t want to be adversarial / confrontational…

4

When you sign up for a VRM account, by doing so you agree to the Privacy Policy linked here.
VRM Privacy Policy

5

I would actually appreciate it if some of the data could be aggregated and presented on a website, app, or via API.

Of course, this data would not include any personal information. However, it would be beneficial to have access to some aggregated data like real-time weather data, grid quality, and green energy production, green energy consumption as a percentage of total consumption, etc. For research, entertainment and educational purposes.

I know that there is a VRM world, but it primarily focuses on individual installations rather than providing aggregated data.

6

Thank you for that !

Third party data storage
Amazon AWS as well as Influx Cloud services are used to store the VRM data.

It would be interesting to see the privacy policy from Amazon AWS and Influx Cloud Services, in regard with their business connection with Victron…