Portland City Council postponed a vote on a proposed ban on surveillance pricing at retail stores after councilors debated whether the rules still leave loopholes for personalized discounts.

The council took up the Consumers Opposed to Surveillance Technology (COST) ordinance on Wednesday, Nov. 4, as first reported by The Oregonian.

District 4 Councilor Eric Zimmerman introduced the measure earlier this year after more local supermarkets began replacing paper price tags with digital ones, making it easier for stores to change prices.

The ordinance would bar retailers and third-party delivery services such as Instacart from using shoppers' personal information to set prices. It would also limit stores to raising a product's regular price no more than once a day. Stores could still use electronic shelf labels.

Zimmerman has said he does not know of any Portland retailer currently using surveillance pricing but wants to prevent the practice before it takes hold, according to The Oregonian.

Morillo flags coupon loophole

Zimmerman revised the proposal at the Nov. 4 meeting, adding restrictions similar to Seattle's version of the law. Under the changes, stores could still offer the same discount to all rewards members or divide members into groups based on past purchases, as long as everyone in each group gets the same deal. Stores could not use other personal information, such as income or location, to decide which rewards discounts shoppers receive.

Councilor Angelita Morillo said the revisions were a step in the right direction but still left loopholes for coupons and other discounts.

Morillo said a store could still send every shopper a coupon "and let its software determine that one person's worth is $2 and the next person's is $0.50."

She tried unsuccessfully to send the revised proposal back to committee for more work.

How the ordinance got here

Zimmerman's office worked with the grocery workers union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555, and the Northwest Grocery Retail Association to draft the ordinance, according to The Oregonian.

Both groups backed a version Zimmerman presented to the council's City Life Committee in September. That version would have exempted discounts offered through store rewards programs from the ban.

The union wanted to preserve those discounts, saying they help bring shoppers back to unionized stores, The Oregonian reported. The grocery association supported the proposal because it protected rewards programs, coupons and other discounts.

Critics worried stores could get around the ban by advertising the same price to everyone, then using personal information collected through rewards programs to offer different discounts. That concern drove Zimmerman's Nov. 4 revisions.

Enforcement and what's next

Under the current draft, Portland's city administrator could investigate violations, demand records and seek fines up to $7,500 per violation, depending on a business's history of violations.

Each shopper charged a price that violates the ordinance would count as a separate violation. Stores would not have to keep specific pricing records, and shoppers could not sue retailers directly.

The council plans to revisit the proposal in January. If approved, the ordinance would take effect July 1, 2027.