Picture this, you’re planning to go to Greece for vacation. Just to get a head start, you look up the cost of flights. For a round trip flight, it’s $800. You hesitate on booking, because work’s busy and you’re not sure you can take the time off. 

A week later, you check again. Same flights, same dates – but now it’s at $1,200. You’re frustrated because it feels like the system didn’t just change the price. It changed the price for you.

That’s the idea behind  “surveillance pricing,” where companies take users’ data, browsing habits or location to tailor what you see, and what you’re willing to pay. 

While fluctuating flight prices are nothing new, an expert warn this kind of data-driven pricing is quietly expanding into more traditional retail spaces.

Now, Manitoba has stepped up moving to restrict “surveillance pricing” by retailers under Bill 49, becoming the first province to take action against online personalized data. 

Bill 49 would ban any practice where retailers use personal data like browsing history, location or past purchases to tailor prices to individual consumers. 

At his first press conference as NDP leader on Monday, Avi Lewis pointed to the legislation and questions surrounding using AI to adopt different prices. 

The goal is to prevent companies from quietly charging different people different prices for the same product, a tactic critics say undermines transparency and fairness in the marketplace. 

“That word ‘personalized’ does a lot of work, and we know that increasingly, because of all the data points, firms are able to both infer from us that we volunteer them and they may get elsewhere,” said Vass Bednar, managing director of the Canadian SHIELD.

Firms always had pricing power, Bednar said, but the problem with using personal data to set prices is increasingly “deceptive.” 

“It’s not the dollar amount—that might be 50 cents more expensive—it’s the principle, and going away from the traditional accessible flat prices,” she said. 

In the U.S., stronger consumer protection frameworks have pushed some companies to be more transparent.

Currently, at least 24 states in 2026 have introduced bills to regulate how companies use consumer data and algorithms to set individualized prices. While proposals vary, they generally focus on boosting transparency, restricting or banning “surveillance pricing,” and limiting how sensitive data can be used in pricing decisions. 

The Washington Post, for example, disclosed that their subscription price was set by personal data.

In another recent example, Sony’s Playstation briefly tested dynamic pricing on digital games. 

But Bednar says the practice is already extending beyond digital platforms. She pointed to examples in online grocery services like Instacart, where consumers could be charged more for everyday items like diapers or food based on past purchases and perceived willingness to pay. 

A research based in the U.S. has also found surveillance pricing has seeped into school supplies, where one school district paying more than triple what another paid for the same item on the same day. 

“The real risk is that this practice seems to be spilling over into traditional retail,” Bednar said. Where the supply and demand constraints have come to characterize a price tag, and firms are extracting the “maximum possible price” a consumer is willing to pay, she said. 

While there’s no “smoking gun” in Canadian firms, yet, Bednar said there’s a need for a national discussion as this pricing practice is here to stay. 

Currently, the federal government said it’s monitoring the rise of algorithmic pricing and assessing whether further action is needed, but has not announced any new regulatory measures. 

The Competition Bureau said algorithmic pricing isn’t explicitly prohibited under Canadian law, but could face scrutiny if it leads to anti-competitive behaviour like collusion or abuse of dominance. 

Earlier this year, the Bureau published a report from a public consultation on algorithmic pricing. The report flagged concerns about potential anti-competitive behaviour and a lack of transparency for consumers, with feedback set to inform its future work, though it doesn’t reflect the agency’s official views. 

“We continue to monitor the use of algorithmic pricing and remain vigilant with respect to developments that have the potential to disrupt competition in Canada,’ the Bureau stated in an email.