New Jersey grocery shoppers will not have to worry about surveillance pricing following the Senate’s 22-14 vote passing the Fair Price Protection Act, according to multiple reports.
The measure, which takes effect in one year, bans surveillance pricing, where retailers collect shopping habits, online activity and other behavioral information and use it to charge different people different prices for the same food items. It protects consumers from higher prices based on their preferences and characteristics.
New Jersey is the second state to prohibit surveillance pricing. Maryland was the first when it passed the Predatory Pricing Act earlier this year.
“Surveillance pricing is an abuse of modern technology where artificial intelligence sets different prices for different customers,” said New Jersey state Sen. Joe Cryan, who along with Sen. Joe Lagana sponsored the bill. “Retailers hurt consumers at a time when families already struggle to pay their bills. They should be protected from the intrusive use of algorithms, personal data and other technologies to exploit their food purchases or individual characteristics.”
The legislation prevents businesses from using surveillance pricing or using personal information collected through electronic surveillance or any pricing strategy that determines the price of essential food products based on a consumer’s personal data, including biometric monitoring, genetic information or protected class data to increase the price of a food item for an individual based on collected data. The prohibitions also apply to third-party grocery delivery platforms.
The bill also establishes a one-year moratorium on installing new electronic shelving labels.
In December 2025, Instacart agreed to pay $60 million in refunds to customers to settle a Federal Trade Commission investigation into what the FTC described as “numerous unlawful tactics” the grocery delivery company used. The FTC also asked Instacart to provide additional information about its use of artificial intelligence in pricing.
A study by the advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative and news organizations More Perfect Union and Consumer Reports claimed Instacart’s AI pricing tools made some grocery orders more expensive.
Instacart attributed the discrepancies to online pricing tests and said prices never changed in real time, including in response to supply and demand. The company said short-term, randomized tests help retail partners understand category-level price sensitivity so they can sustainably invest in lower prices where consumers care most.
