Over the past couple of years, the world has been preparing for a pandemic. Most experts believed that the avian flu was the most significant threat that faced the world, but recent declarations of a potential pandemic with confirmation of cases in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada from a swine flu have led to fears that the next pandemic is upon us. In the event of a pandemic, the government of Canada has set up a website, which will provide information to the public.
In times of fear, governments and citizens alike often overreact to address a threat. It is times like this that individuals, in addition to heeding advice about how to avoid the flu, should be vigilant about what measures the government may be taking to address this health crisis. Last summer, Canada experienced another health crisis when a strain of listeria was found in certain meat products. Tragically, by the time it was over, 21 people had reportedly died. The public health crisis was announced mid-August, but a team of researchers at Google later found that searches for the term listeriosis spiked in Canada about a month before the public announcement. An article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal indicated that those searches lined up with the peak of the outbreak while the public announcement came while new cases were on the decline.
The analysis of aggregated search trends has been proposed as a means to fight pandemics and outbreaks of illnesses. However, even those proposing this analysis have admitted this type of analysis is complicated because it is difficult to know who is searching and why. In the Government of Canada’s News Release on April 26, 2009, a short privacy policy was cited stating that although Service Canada does not normally use cookies, if you have cookie notifications set on your browser, you would be notified. However, earlier this month, the same site indicated that the Pandemic Influenza Portal did not normally use cookies to track visitors to the site and that the system would notify you before any cookies were used so you could refuse them with no reference to what your computer settings were.
This change is a minor one but it may possibly be an indication of the small bits of privacy that Canadians will be expected to give up during these times of concern.
