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Because this bill is establishing a permissive means by which
merchants can verify or deny transactions, we believe it has no substantive
impact on our principles.
It is worth noting that some credit card processing companies
allow merchant's to ask a customer for proof of identification but do not allow
the merchant to refuse the sale in the event the customer is unable or refuses
to produce identification. To the extent that this legislation would give legal
authority for a merchant to turn down a sale on account of a customer not
producing identification, this could result in the impairment of a
contract between the merchant and the credit card issuer. That would be an
issue for the courts to decide.
Again, we note that this is permissive and contains no penalties so on the whole it appears to still leave most of the power with the merchant and card institutions therefore are neutral.