Canada introduces Bill C-36 to crack down on price discrimination based on consumer data

The government of Canada, led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, on June 15, 2026, submitted to parliament the Bill C-36 — "Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act." The document is intended to replace the outdated Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which has been in effect since 1998, and restrict the practice of price discrimination against individual consumers based on their personal data.

What the New Law Prohibits

The bill is aimed at so-called surveillance pricing — the practice by which companies collect personal data about consumers (purchase history, online behavior, geolocation, and other signals) and based on this show different people different prices for the same product or service. Bill C-36 introduces new restrictions on such use of data for individual price discrimination.

• Date of bill submission — June 15, 2026
• Official name — Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act (Bill C-36)
• Law being replaced — PIPEDA, effective in Canada since 1998
• Focus of regulation — use of personal data for price discrimination against individual consumers
• Initiator — the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney

What Law It Replaces

PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) — Canada's basic law on the protection of personal data in the private sector. It was adopted in 1998, long before the emergence of modern practices of data collection, personalized advertising, and algorithmic pricing, which today allow companies to build detailed profiles of individual consumers and adjust prices to them in real time. Bill C-36 should update regulation to the realities of 2026.

This is not the first attempt by Canada to reform the outdated law on data protection: a similar reform in the previous parliamentary term was not completed. The submission of Bill C-36 is a new attempt by the government to close this gap.

How Other Countries Regulate This

Canada is not the only jurisdiction where surveillance pricing has come to the attention of regulators. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into this practice among major retailers and tech companies as early as 2024, studying how personal data is used to set individual prices. Bill C-36 places Canada in the same group of countries where algorithmic pricing based on consumer data is transitioning from a marketing practice to a subject of separate regulation.

Why Details Are Still Lacking

As The Next Web notes, when the bill was submitted, it remained unclear exactly how the fact of surveillance pricing would be verified and proven — that is, what specific control and enforcement mechanisms regulators would have. The name of the bill and its purpose are stated clearly, but the enforcement part had not been disclosed at the time of publication.

What This Means

Canada becomes yet another jurisdiction where regulators explicitly identify algorithmic pricing based on personal data as a separate problem requiring special legislation, rather than just general data protection rules. For businesses using price personalization, this is a signal to prepare for stricter rules — even if the details of Bill C-36 enforcement are yet to be clarified in the course of parliamentary deliberation on the bill.