Grocery Bill Bans Digital Price Tags in Large Stores and Cracks Down on Surveillance Pricing

The newly proposed Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act of 2025 is aiming to hit grocery stores where it hurts: their pricing strategies and their use of consumer data. This bill takes a swing at two major anxieties—the rising cost of food and the feeling that you’re constantly being watched and tracked while you shop.

The Price Gouging Guardrail

First, let’s talk about your wallet. Section 2 aims to prevent grocery stores from charging “grossly excessive” prices for food items. The bill doesn't define that term precisely, but it gives the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) 180 days to figure it out. Crucially, the bill suggests the FTC should consider any price 20% higher than the item’s average price over the previous six months as a benchmark for being excessive. The store can defend itself if the price hike is due to unavoidable, increased costs, like higher shipping or wholesale prices.

What this means for you: If this passes, the FTC will have a new tool to investigate and penalize stores that seem to be exploiting consumers by jacking up prices on essentials without justification. It’s a direct attempt to provide relief against opportunistic pricing, which hits everyone’s budget hard, especially when buying staples like milk and eggs.

Your Data is Not a Price Tag

Section 3 tackles the unsettling trend of personalized pricing—where the price you see is different from the price the person next to you sees. The bill bans store operators from adjusting prices based on your personal information gathered via “electronic surveillance technology.” This means they can’t use facial recognition or other tracking tech to determine that you’re a high-income shopper and charge you $1 more for the same box of cereal.

This is a huge win for privacy advocates. The bill defines “personal information” incredibly broadly, covering everything from your purchase history and location data to your political interests. While stores can still offer public discounts (like senior or student deals) or use your data to administer loyalty rewards, they can’t use that data for anything else, such as targeted ads. If a store wants to use your biometric data (like a fingerprint scan) for identification, they have to get your written consent, tell you exactly how long they’ll keep the data, and they are strictly forbidden from selling or sharing it with any third party.

The Great Digital Price Tag Ban

Here is where the bill gets physical and affects the shopping experience in a noticeable way. Section 5 bans the use of electronic shelf labels (ESLs)—those small digital screens that show the price—in any physical grocery store larger than 10,000 square feet. These big stores must switch back to non-digital displays, like printed signs, for every product.

For the consumer, this could mean more price stability, as prices can’t be changed instantly from a central computer. For large retailers, however, this is a major operational headache and a costly step backward. Stores that invested heavily in ESLs for efficiency and dynamic pricing would have to rip them out and revert to manual printing and placement, which could increase labor costs and potentially lead to more pricing errors than automated systems.

Who’s Watching the Watchers?

If a store decides to use facial recognition technology for security or tracking, Section 4 requires them to put up clear and easy-to-read signs right at the main entrance. No more secret surveillance. You’ll know upfront if your face is being scanned when you walk in the door.

Finally, Section 6 gives this bill serious teeth. Not only can the FTC enforce these rules, but State Attorneys General can sue on behalf of residents. More importantly for the average person, if you are harmed by a violation, you can sue the store yourself. The minimum recovery is set at $3,000 per violation, and if the store acted knowingly, that amount triples. Plus, any pre-signed agreements that force you into private arbitration or waive your right to join a class action lawsuit are void for violations of this Act. This restores your right to take the store to court if they break these rules, a powerful check against corporate overreach.