New State Law Gives More Credit to Privacy

I’ve always been annoyed by the request of a merchant or waiter for my telephone number when signing a credit card slip, but I’ve never been annoyed enough to refuse to give it. Who wants to get in an argument in the middle of a restaurant?

Instead, I scrawled a telephone number, sometimes even someone else’s, in incomprehensible handwriting and protected my privacy that way.

Now, the state legislature has come to my rescue. I can refuse to give my telephone number. In fact, as of the first of the year, it is against California law for anyone to require you or me to provide a phone number for the purpose of recording it on a credit card slip.

The privacy protection goes beyond telephone numbers. It applies to any “personal identification information” that specifically includes your street address, as well.

You cannot be required to write the information on a credit card slip nor can the merchant ask for it for the purpose of writing it.

The word is getting out. I’ve been in several stores recently where the clerk crossed out the printed space reserved for telephone numbers. The statute outlaws the use of such printed forms.

The penalty for violating this new law is $250 for the first violation and $1,000 for subsequent ones. The person paying by credit card can sue to collect the penalty. The state attorney general, district attorneys and city attorneys are also authorized to file such a suit.

I wouldn’t expect too many penalties imposed for a while. If the merchant can show that the violation--asking for the phone number, that is--was “not intentional and a bona fide error made notwithstanding the defendant’s maintenance of procedures reasonably adopted to avoid such an error,” then no penalty will be imposed.

But it sure is a nice threat to have in reserve when some nasty clerk gets in a huff after you say you don’t want to give your phone number.

A companion statute provides similar protection for checks. Under the new law, you cannot be required to provide a credit card as a condition of acceptance of the check.

The merchant cannot write down your credit card number on the check, nor ask you to sign a statement agreeing to allow the credit card to be charged if the check is no good.

However, the merchant may still require “reasonable forms of positive identification” including a driver’s license. In addition, the merchant may ask you to display a credit card as an indication of your credit worthiness, but the merchant may only record the type of credit card, who issued the card and the expiration date, not the credit card number. (The technical point here is that the merchant can ask, but not make it a condition of acceptance of your check.)

Violation of this statute is also punishable by $250 for the first infraction and $1,000 for additional ones, but the same good faith defenses apply.

These new laws can be found in Section 1725 and 1747.8 of the Civil Code.

Klein, an attorney and assistant to the publisher of The Times, cannot answer mail personally but will respond in this column to questions of general interest about the law. Write to Jeffrey S. Klein, Legal View, The Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.