The NDP is calling on the federal government to ban surveillance pricing that it says is unfairly targeting consumers based on their search histories and personal preferences.

Newly appointed leader Avi Lewis says his party’s focus is on cost of living issues and calls algorithmic pricing part of the “triple threat of Big Tech, AI and corporate monopolies.”

Lewis says increasingly, companies are moving away from set pricing and toward digital pricing, which bases the price of items – including groceries – on a person’s personal data.

“Grocery giants and other retailers are teaming up with Big Tech to squeeze people even more. Companies now have the technology to use our personal data – everything from our shopping habits, where we live, what we do online, or even how long our mouse hovers over a specific section of a specific website – to set individual prices for each of us.”

“They have at their disposal an unlimited number of data points, harvested from our devices through digital surveillance and AI, that they are now using to predict the highest price they can get away with charging us.”

Lewis says the practice means that two different people could pay two different prices for the same item at the same store or on the same website, on the same day.

“It’s unfair, it’s a rip off…it’s downright creepy and it’s time to put a stop to it.”