CDC wants to track travelers
The Centers for Disease Control now wants airlines, travel agents, and online reservations systems to collect a lot of information—e-mail address, cellphone number, traveling companions’ names, your name, your address, and your emergency contacts name, address, and phone number—to help control the spread of disease during a bird flu pandemic, according to Government Health IT.
- Battling a pandemic disease such as avian flu requires the ability to quickly track sick people and anyone they have contacted.
In response, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have proposed new federal regulations to electronically track more than 600 million U.S. airline passengers a year traveling on more than 7 million flights through 67 hub airports.
The new regulations, which are available on the CDC’s Web site and will be posted for a 60-day comment period in the Federal Register starting Nov. 30, would require airlines, travel agents and global reservations systems to collect personal information that exceeds the quantity of information currently collected by the Transportation Security Administration or the Homeland Security Department.
I am totally torn on this one. On one hand, it could help prevent a huge outbreak. On the other, it’s an absolute invasion of privacy. Is this OK in the name of health, but not for security reasons? Or vice versa? I guess, if it came down to it, I could learn to live with it, as long as the information is guarded like Fort Knox, only better.
Related Topics: Travel
November 30th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
I also saw this and it could be done anonymously. The CDC prints fliers instructing people what to do if a pandemic breaks out. The fliers are distributed as people board planes. They could also get space in the print media and on TV and radio. I can’t believe any of those would turn down a CDC request to broadcast an alert. Besides, the work involved in programming existing systems to gather data not there is prohibitive. My $0.02
Cheers
December 1st, 2005 at 7:32 am
The next tool used to completely purge you of all information considered sacred will be the “air cancer” … a perfectly valid reason to check your blood and dna information and finally get rid of those completely disgusting “personal rights” that might still be hanging around ….
Your comments about it being ok remind me of the woman they interviewed about the airport “searching” each passenger … her comment was something like ” take away all my rights just make me safe” ,… when are you libs going to get it …. once gone .. gone forever …
My opinion ….. GET A SEARCH WARRANT … in the mean time … as to the information being required …. NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS…
Nuff Said..
BC Johnson
December 1st, 2005 at 5:05 pm
BC, I really don’t like the invasion of privacy either. But when potentially millions of lives are on the line, including my own, I’d give the CDC my e-mail address. It’s not exactly a state secret–just ask all the spammers who have no problem getting it. By the time they could get search warrants on everyone on a plane with an infected passenger, chances are they already would have infected their friends, families, and others they come in contact with after disembarking. But I like Gary’s idea of doing this anonymously infinitely better.
I absolutely don’t believe in abdicating our rights in the name of safety under normal circumstances, but in the case of something as potentially devastating as a pandemic, I just don’t know. As I said, I’m torn.
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