[prawks]

I think that's a difficult comparison to make because you can reasonably secure your house against unwanted entry and it's fairly likely that breaches could be detected.

Obviously malicious law enforcement could still circumvent that just as they could a warrant depending on their level of capabilities and your house's security, but there isn't a similar path to securing your water usage data against warrant-less searching. Its security is wholly in the hands of a third party and any security breaches are essentially invisible to you.

That said, we're both painting in broad strokes.