Surveillance pricing.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary text does not specify all possible exemptions, leaving some uncertainty about what constitutes a 'specific exemption'.

Surveillance Pricing Law

AB-2564 prohibits retailers from using personal information collected through electronic surveillance to set different prices for specific consumers or groups of consumers, with certain exceptions.

What This Bill Does

• Defines 'surveillance pricing' as offering or setting a customized price based on personally identifiable information gathered via electronic means.
• Prohibits retailers from engaging in surveillance pricing unless there are specific exemptions.
• Allows only public prosecutors to sue violators for penalties and legal fees, while consumers can seek court orders against unfair practices.
• Declares that any agreement waiving the law's requirements is not allowed.

Who It Names or Affects

• Retailers who use electronic surveillance technology to collect personal information from customers.
• Consumers whose personal information could be used for pricing decisions by retailers.

Terms To Know

Surveillance Pricing

Offering or setting a customized price for goods based on personally identifiable information collected through electronic means.

Public Prosecutor

A government official who can bring legal action against retailers violating the surveillance pricing law.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify all possible exemptions to surveillance pricing prohibitions.
• It is unclear how enforcement will be carried out beyond what public prosecutors and consumers are allowed to do.

Official Summary Text

AB 2564, as amended, Ward.
Surveillance pricing.
Existing law, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), grants a consumer various rights with respect to personal information that is collected or sold by a business, as defined, including the right to direct a business that sells or shares personal information about the consumer to third parties not to sell or share the consumer’s personal information, as specified. Existing law, the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, approved by the voters as Proposition 24 at the November 3, 2020, statewide general election, amended, added to, and reenacted the CCPA and establishes the California Privacy Protection Agency and vests the agency with full administrative power, authority, and jurisdiction to enforce those provisions.
Existing law requires a retail grocery store or grocery department within a general retail merchandise store that
uses a point-of-sale system to have a clearly readable price indicated on 85% of the total number of packaged consumer commodities offered for sale, subject to specified exemptions.
This bill would, subject to certain exceptions, prohibit a retailer from engaging in surveillance pricing. The bill would define “surveillance pricing” to mean offering or setting a customized price for a good for a specific consumer or group of consumers, based, in whole or in part, on personally identifiable information collected through electronic surveillance technology, as specified. The bill would provide that only a public prosecutor, as specified, may bring an action against a violator of these provisions to recover specified civil penalties, injunctive relief, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs, and would authorize a consumer to bring an action for injunctive relief and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. The bill would declare that any waiver of these provisions is
against public policy and is void and unenforceable.
This bill would declare that its provisions further the purposes and intent of the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF