New York Becomes Third State to Pass Surveillance Pricing Ban

The New York Legislature passed the One Fair Price Act on Thursday, making it the third state to pass a surveillance pricing ban after Maryland and Connecticut. The bill will soon advance to the desk of Gov. Kathy Hochul, and EPIC urges her to sign this important legislation. 

Surveillance pricing is an unfair practice where businesses use shoppers’ personal data to set individualized prices. It hurts affordability, contributes to privacy harms, takes advantage of consumers at their most vulnerable, and can discriminate against people based on protected characteristics such as race.   

The One Fair Price Act builds on New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act, a transparency-focused bill passed last year that requires businesses to disclose any surveillance pricing use to consumers. While last year’s measure was a good first step, the One Fair Price Act will much more effectively protect consumers from the affordability and privacy harms that surveillance pricing causes because it prohibits this harmful practice. 

Several other states, including New Jersey and California, are considering similar surveillance pricing regulations. 

EPIC has supported several state efforts to ban surveillance pricing and looks forward to working with more state lawmakers in their attempts to tackle this core consumer privacy and affordability issue.