Surveillance pricing.

Plain English Breakdown

The exact nature and extent of the exceptions are not detailed in the provided official summary.

Surveillance Pricing Law

AB-446 prohibits grocery stores from setting different prices based on personally identifiable information collected through electronic surveillance, with exceptions.

What This Bill Does

• Defines 'surveillance pricing' as offering or setting a customized price increase for goods or services based on personally identifiable information gathered by electronic means.
• Prohibits grocery establishments from engaging in surveillance pricing, subject to certain exceptions.
• Allows public prosecutors and consumers to take legal action against violators for civil penalties, injunctive relief, and attorney's fees.

Who It Names or Affects

• Grocery stores and departments within general retail stores
• Consumers whose personal information could be used for pricing decisions

Terms To Know

Surveillance Pricing

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

Public Prosecutor

A government official who can bring legal action against someone breaking the law.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify all possible exceptions to the prohibition on surveillance pricing.
• It is unclear what specific penalties violators might face beyond civil penalties, injunctive relief, and attorney's fees.

Official Summary Text

AB 446, 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
person
grocery establishment, as defined,
from engaging in surveillance pricing. The bill would define “surveillance pricing” to mean offering or setting a customized price
increase
for a good or service 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