{"id":153,"date":"2017-02-15T16:55:32","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T20:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/?p=153"},"modified":"2020-08-04T16:36:37","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T20:36:37","slug":"dangers-of-data-mining-in-california-restaurants-song-beverly-credit-card-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/2017\/02\/15\/dangers-of-data-mining-in-california-restaurants-song-beverly-credit-card-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangers of Data-Mining in California Restaurants: Song-Beverly Credit Card Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Constantine Mittendorf<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Data is hugely important in running a successful restaurant today.\u00a0 Targeted email marketing campaigns can be an invaluable marketing tool.\u00a0 But trying to collect too much data can land your bistro in hot water.\u00a0 California has specific laws limiting what data can and cannot be collected \u2013 restaurants need to be aware of these limitations or it can be very costly.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For example, California enacted the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act<\/u><\/a> in order to promote consumer protection.\u00a0\u00a0 The Act\u2019s purpose is to protect people\u2019s\u00a0personal privacy and personal identification information during credit card transactions.\u00a0 California courts have found the Act\u2019s purpose is to protect against the misuse of personal identification information for, among other things, \u201cmarketing purposes\u201d \u2013 which is exactly why businesses want this data.\u00a0 They want to email you their weekly specials and happy hour deals!<\/p>\n

The statute specifically prohibits merchants from requesting or requiring personal identification information as a condition of using a credit card.\u00a0 The key language of the Act<\/u><\/a> is as follows:<\/p>\n

\u2026 [no] corporation that accepts credit cards for the transaction of business shall \u2026 [r]equest, or require as a condition to accepting the credit card \u2026 personal identification information\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Courts have found that \u201cpersonal identification information\u201d includes a customer\u2019s phone number, addresses, and even email addresses.\u00a0 In other words, if a restaurant or diner asks for a customer\u2019s email, phone number, or ZIP code during the credit card payment process, it could open the restaurant to liability under the Act.<\/p>\n

And liability is potentially huge \u2013 $250 for the first violation and $1,000 per each subsequent violation.\u00a0 That means if a restaurant requests a mere 100 email addresses a day in violation of the Act, within a couple of weeks the business could be facing over a million dollars in potential liability \u2013 a very expensive electronic mailing list.<\/p>\n

The other day, I ate lunch at a fast casual restaurant chain.\u00a0 Sure enough,\u00a0in the middle of the credit card transaction came a\u00a0request for\u00a0my email address.\u00a0 Businesses need to be very careful about how they collect, store, monitor,\u00a0and use customer data.\u00a0 The rules are tricky, and missteps can lead to disaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Constantine Mittendorf Data is hugely important in running a successful restaurant today.\u00a0 Targeted email marketing campaigns can be an invaluable marketing tool.\u00a0 But trying to collect too much data can land your bistro in hot water.\u00a0 California has specific laws limiting what data can and cannot be collected \u2013 restaurants need to be aware … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Dangers of Data-Mining in California Restaurants: Song-Beverly Credit Card Act”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[88,54,81,12,13,176,173,175,174,96,59,172],"ppma_author":[201],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-california","tag-california-law","tag-california-restaurant-law","tag-california-restaurants","tag-constantine-mittendorf","tag-consumer-protection","tag-credit-card-act","tag-data-collection","tag-data-mining","tag-restaurant-law","tag-restaurants","tag-song-beverly"],"authors":[{"term_id":201,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/843ff6e7a8fe5fc92109b47a45f34b6cf0ea499e6e788db23456c838b0ae6747?s=96&d=blank&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}