1. United States
2. Idaho
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to support legislation that breaks up big tech monopolies and regulates artificial intelligence surveillance technologies, particularly in retail settings. These measures are essential to bringing down costs for constituents and protecting our privacy. Major retailers are deploying facial recognition and biometric surveillance to implement dynamic pricing strategies that extract maximum profit from shoppers. Woodrow Hartzog, a law professor at Boston University, explains that companies use this data to charge customers the highest amount they're willing to pay. Retailers analyze behaviors like how long we linger comparing off-brand versus name-brand products to determine our price sensitivity, then adjust prices accordingly. This technology doesn't serve consumers. It serves corporate profit margins at our expense. The concentration of power in big tech companies like Amazon enables these exploitative practices. Amazon's palm-to-pay technology at Amazon Go and Whole Foods stores creates checkout-less experiences that collect biometric data while eliminating worker jobs. Wegmans grocery stores in New York City now post signs alerting customers to facial recognition surveillance. Aaron Martin, a data scientist at the University of Virginia, notes that shoppers face an impossible choice: avoid stores using surveillance technology or surrender personal data, since these systems operate by default. The technology is also fundamentally flawed. Rite Aid received a temporary ban from using AI facial recognition after its system disproportionately and falsely identified women and people of color as shoplifters. This demonstrates how AI surveillance perpetuates discrimination while driving up costs through algorithmic price manipulation. Currently, no federal law requires retailers to disclose surveillance practices, and privacy regulations vary inconsistently across states. I urge you to support federal legislation that breaks up tech monopolies, bans biometric surveillance in retail settings, and prohibits dynamic pricing algorithms. These reforms will lower costs for your constituents and restore our right to shop without corporate surveillance.