The Nickel Report

Guarding confidential or sensitive information is a longstanding tradition that transcends daily life. From the pinky-swearing days of childhood (to prevent your parents from finding out you rode your bike beyond their imposed boundary), to the fourth down play when your team is one point down with three seconds left on the clock, to the unique, complex chemical composition of a lifesaving drug, the concept of secrecy has roots in just about everything we do. In the business world, secrets are routinely kept to protect market share, privacy of customers, technology or for any number of other legitimate business-related concerns. Indeed, disclosure of confidential information can pose a real threat to a business’s vitality.

Energy companies may not be thinking much yet about federal legislation to regulate the consumer data they hold, but they should be. Privacy is shaping up to be a key legislative topic this year.

Why would an energy company need to care about privacy legislation? Because lots of different energy companies have extensive consumer data. Oil companies’ service station loyalty programs, electric utilities’ customer data—these are among the many types of consumer data that might end up being regulated under legislation Congress is expected to consider. Any company with large amounts of consumer data should pay attention to the issue. In addition, HR data may also be covered by privacy legislation, affecting every US company whether or not they hold consumer data.