America imposes rules on Canadian Flights

I found this topic interesting as I’ve studied the phenomenal Canadian Privacy Act. A great set of laws that protects Canadians from intrusive collection of unnecessary personal information. It is satisfying to learn that the Canadian Government takes personal privacy seriously. In the summer an example of this was the Governments plans to sue Facebook over many breaches of the Privacy Act. This article from CBC News is right up my alley.

Canada’s major airlines say they will be forced either to break privacy laws or to ignore new American air security rules unless the federal government comes up with a response to U.S. demands for passenger information.

The program would collect the name, gender and birth date of the approximately five million Canadians who fly through American airspace en route to destinations such as the Caribbean, Mexico and South America, even if their planes don’t touch the ground in the States.

Canada’s airlines fear violating privacy under new U.S. rules – CBC

I think the United States of America is going to have shut up. They can’t make a Canadian company break the law. There are also concerns about the security of the personal information and where it will end up. This issue is likely going to cause flights to be routed around United States airspace. This causes inefficiency because of the waste of fuel required to go around the US, and of the extra time it will take. I hope the Canadian government doesn’t neuter our excellent privacy laws in favour of American paranoia. I hope this puts pressure on our government to make the US back down on this requirement. There is no way to make an air-plane ride completely safe, too many people have access. Taking the rights away from Canadians won’t make the ride any safer and is likely to cause Canadians to dislike and possibly even avoid the United States.