Credit cards: personal information.

Existing state and federal law regulate the provision of credit and the use of credit cards. Existing state law prohibits a person, firm, partnership, association, or corporation that accepts credit cards for the transaction of business from requesting or requiring the cardholder to provide personal identification information, which is then recorded, as a condition to accepting the credit card as payment in full or in part for goods or services, but provides various exceptions to this prohibition. Existing law excepts from this prohibition the instance when the person or entity accepting the card is contractually obligated to provide personal identification information in order to complete the transaction or is obligated to collect and record the identification information by federal law. This bill would except from the prohibition described above the instance when the person or entity accepting the card uses Zip Code information for prevention of fraud, theft, or identity theft in specified retail motor fuel transactions, and would specify that state law obligations are also permissible reasons to collect and record personal information. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.