If you and a stranger grab the same carton of eggs at the same Portland store at the same time, you should pay the same price. That's the idea behind a proposed city ordinance headed to the Portland City Council.

"When we start changing the price of a product based on the individual, I have an issue with that," said District 4 Councilor Eric Zimmerman, who introduced the measure.

The Consumers Opposed to Surveillance Technology ordinance, or COST, would ban retailers and delivery apps from using your personal data to set what you pay, a practice known as surveillance pricing. Nobody, including Zimmerman, says Portland stores are doing it yet. The point is to stop it before it starts.

The ordinance passed the City Council's City Life Committee 4-1 on Sept. 22 with rare backing from both the grocery workers' union and the grocery industry. It's scheduled for a first reading before the full City Council on Nov. 4. But its lone committee critic, District 3 Councilor Angelita Morillo, argues it's written with loopholes that would let stores keep doing exactly what it claims to ban.

The ordinance covers all retail goods, not just groceries. Under the version headed to the full City Council:

Online and in-store prices can still differ, as can delivery fees, as long as they're based on the real cost of delivery. Setting a delivery fee from a shopper's personal data, like predicted income, would be a violation, Zimmerman's office said.

Zimmerman said he went beyond groceries on purpose. "Is the practice any less exploitative if you're buying oil for your car, a tire for your bike, or wasp spray at Home Depot?" he said.

The idea came from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, which raised concerns about electronic shelf labels, the digital price tags showing up in some Portland-area stores. Retailers mostly want them for mundane reasons: they cut the labor of swapping paper tags by hand and keep shelf prices in sync with the register.

"It doesn't mean your grocery store is surveilling you," Zimmerman said. What worries him is what the tags make possible: changing prices instantly, potentially based on who's standing in the aisle. The ordinance went "into high gear," he said, after a fairly large retailer told him tech companies had pitched AI tools to size up shoppers' price points before they walk in the door.

Zimmerman said Kroger, which owns Fred Meyer and QFC, and Albertsons, which owns Safeway, told him they don't use surveillance pricing. Online, it has already happened: A Consumer Reports investigation last year found Instacart charged different shoppers as much as 23% more for identical items. Instacart said it would stop. The COST ordinance would cover delivery apps too.

In nearly two years of tracking Portland grocery prices for Stumptown Savings, I haven't found evidence of surveillance pricing in local stores.

Grocery unions and grocery companies don't often testify side by side. On this one, they did. Grocers helped shape details like the once-a-day limit on price increases, Zimmerman said.

"Our members don't engage in surveillance pricing to set prices," said Amanda Dalton of the Northwest Grocery Retail Association. Her members' top priority was protecting personalized deals shoppers sign up for. "We don't need a bunch of coupons for dog food if we don't own a dog," she said.

UFCW 555 backed that too, unlike some grocery unions elsewhere. "Families are struggling, and now is not the time to ban loyalty program discounts that keep customers coming back to union-represented stores," said Mike Selvaggio, the union's political director.

Where to draw the line on discounts is the biggest disagreement, here and elsewhere.

Seattle became the first U.S. city to ban surveillance pricing in groceries when Mayor Katie Wilson signed its ordinance Oct. 5. Seattle still allows coupons, sales and loyalty discounts, as long as every member gets the same deal, or every member in a tier based solely on past purchases. It bans discounts built from one shopper's personal data, and lets shoppers sue. Safeway says it may have to drop its Safeway for U program there.

Zimmerman said he deliberately avoided "the Seattle model." Portland's version looks more like Maryland's statewide law, which took effect Oct. 1 and exempts loyalty programs anyone can join.

Morillo's amendment would have moved Portland toward Seattle, requiring discounts to be offered on equal, public terms to everyone who qualifies, plus record-keeping rules and a right to sue. Dalton said it would have put loyalty programs at risk. It failed 2-3, and Morillo cast the only vote against advancing the ordinance out of committee.

Morillo's office says the ordinance as written doesn't ban surveillance pricing at all. In a written response, it called COST "a Trojan horse bill" that capitalizes on public disdain for surveillance pricing "in order to protect those very practices."

The argument hinges on one definition. The ordinance bans using personal data to set a product's "retail price," but defines that as the price before any loyalty pricing, promotions or discounts. And in committee, Zimmerman's own amendment struck language requiring loyalty discounts to be "available to all."

So, Morillo's office argues, a store could post milk at $4.99 for everyone, then use its loyalty app to give one shopper a dollar off, another 50 cents and a third nothing, based on what it guesses about their income, ZIP code or health. "That is surveillance discounting and is how surveillance pricing most frequently works," the office wrote, citing Consumer Reports' finding of an "income predictor" in Kroger's loyalty data.

The office rejected the idea that its amendment would kill coupons. "Your data can decide whether you qualify for an offer, not how much you get," it wrote.

Zimmerman's office said it has tried to get clarification from Morillo's office on the critique but hasn't heard back. In the meantime, it said, it's working with the City Attorney's Office to make sure the ordinance does what it's meant to do.

Enforcement would be complaint-based, with the City Administrator able to investigate and bring cases before a city hearings officer. A business would get 45 days to fix a first violation.

Fines would run up to $1,000 for each shopper affected in a first notice of violation, according to Zimmerman's office, so a notice covering 10 overcharged shoppers could bring up to $10,000. Fines rise to $5,000 and $7,500 for second and later notices within two years. Morillo's office reads the text differently, arguing it caps a first offense at $1,000 total no matter how many shoppers were overcharged. For a big chain, the office wrote, that would be "a rounding error, not a reason to stop."

Selvaggio said a complaint-based approach still keeps these practices from being "systemically integrated into a company's business plan."

The ordinance would be superseded by any conflicting state law, and it doesn't take effect until after the 2027 legislative session. State Rep. Willy Chotzen, D-Southeast Portland, has convened a work group on statewide legislation, and UFCW 555 is part of it. Zimmerman hopes Portland's ordinance can serve as a model. How much a state law should override local rules is "entirely up for discussion," Selvaggio said. Chotzen's office did not respond to an interview request.

Morillo plans to bring more amendments when the ordinance reaches the full City Council. A first reading before the full City Council is scheduled for Nov. 4, with a vote typically about a week later, though Zimmerman's office said the date could slip again. You can testify or submit written testimony on the ordinance's City Council page.