That bureaucratic term silences the screams of families suffering in the heat or cold, depending on the season. Since 2021, utility costs have surged 47% across the continent while wages stagnate in a cruel arithmetic that reduces families to penury. They burn wood to stay warm that we know releases toxins into the air, but they choose poisons over freezing to death. The European Commission calls these choices “energy market adjustments” in their blather rather than the collapse of human dignity. The human body itself becomes the password, the identifier that cannot be forgotten or stolen as happens with other passwords.