Non-Substantive Change Request Justification

Airline and Traveler Information Collection: Domestic Manifests

and the Passenger Locator Form

(42 CFR parts 70 and 71)

(OMB Control No. 0920-1181)

Expires 05/31/2020

Program Contact

Nancy Khalil

Office of Policy and Planning

National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

1600 Clifton Road, N.E., MS C12

Atlanta, Georgia 30333

Phone: 770.488.2070

Email: [email protected]

Submission Date: March 4, 2020

Circumstances of Change Request for OMB 0920-1181

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Global Migration and Quarantine (DGMQ) requests a nonmaterial/non-substantive of the currently approved Information Collection Request: “Airline and Traveler Information Collection: Domestic Manifests and the Passenger Locator Form (42 CFR parts 70 and 71)”.

The Public Health Passenger Locator Form (PLF) is an information collection tool used by CDC to facilitate public health follow-up of travelers who may have been exposed to or infected with a communicable disease. Currently, CDC has Office of Management and Budget, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs approval for a paper-based PLF. The current PLF is also the standard for use under agreement by the member states of the International Civil Aviation Organization

In response to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), CDC is providing travelers and airlines with a secure, electronic method to provide their contact information to CDC, one which involves a responsive web application version of the Public Health Passenger Locator Form that does not require individuals to fill out a paper form and involves fewer data fields to complete. This form will be available at: https://tdc.cdc.gov, or by using the following QR Code:

The following fields will be solicited from the traveler and confirmed by the airlines:

1. Airline (Required, to the extent the information is available and maintained by the airline.)

2. Flight number ( Required, to the extent the information is available and maintained by the airline)

3. Seat number ( Required, to the extent the information is available and maintained by the airline)

4. Arrival Date ( Required, to the extent the information is available and maintained by the airline, pre-populated)

5. Name: Last, First, Middle Initial (Required)

6. Primary Phone (While in the US) (Field required, respondent can check a box to indicate there is no phone available)

7. Secondary Phone (While in the US)

8. Email (Field required, respondent can check a box to indicate there is no email available )

9. Address in the United States:

   1. Number and Street

   2. Apartment Number

   3. City (Required)

   4. State (Required)

These fields currently appear on the paper version of the current Passenger Locator Form.

CDC's authority to collect this information can be found in 42 CFR 71.4(a), 71.4(d), and 71.31(b), as authorized by 42 U.S.C. §264.

Under 42 U.S.C. CFR 71.4(d), airlines are obligated to provide fields 5-9, to the extent those fields exist. The remainder of the fields are required under 71.4(a) to the extent information for those fields is available and maintained by the airlines. If any of these fields are not available and maintained by the airlines, the airlines may request them voluntarily, but is not under a legal obligation to do so under the current orders. Finally, under 42 CFR 71.31(b), CDC has general authority to compel airlines to complete public health measures required in 42 CFR 71.

Currently, the responsive web application version of the PLF is targeted towards travelers who are on the same flight as an individual who has visited a location with a Level 3 CDC Travel Notice (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/index.html). These travelers will be asked to complete the submission of the information via the secure web application prior to boarding their flight. Airlines will then confirm submission of the information by reviewing a message that is created and sent to the traveler’s device in response to a completed PLF.

Once a traveler submits data using the responsive web application version of the PLF, the data is transferred to Microsoft Azure Commercial Cloud services, which have Impact Level of High according to FedRAMP.

The system used to collect this data makes use of three cookies, as follows:

1. CDC’s cookie creates a globally unique identifier (GUID) to ensure that every form that is submitted is unique. 

   1. This is a generated number that is not tied to a submitter’s name or information; it is used only as a counter used within the database. 

   2. This counter is held in a submitter’s browser for one hour, when it expires and disappears. 

   3. This cookie is needed by the browser to send the confirmation of submission to the traveler; this GUID will be added to the submission confirmation screen.

   4. The traveler must take a screenshot or download confirmation from the browser within that hour. 

   5. If the user doesn’t perform this action, the confirmation screen expires and the submitter must submit again as each submission is unique

2. Use of the Microsoft Azure Commercial Cloud service requires the use of Microsoft’s Application Insights cookie.

3. Use of the reCaptcha system to protect against spam submissions requires Google’s cookie for reCaptcha.

CDC believes that the responsive web application version will streamline the collection of the information and better allow CDC to work with state and local health departments to provide appropriate public health follow-up in response to COVID-19. Once CDC determines that the contact information collected the web version of the PLF is needed to provide public health follow-up, CDC will generate encrypted JSON data files from the secure Microsoft Azure Commercial Cloud referenced above for use in the Quarantine Activity Reporting System. CDC will then sort the relevant flight information by state and distribute the information via Epi-X, a secure communication system, to the relevant state health departments for their action.

Burden

CDC anticipates no substantive change in burden associated with making a response web application version of the PLF available to travelers, assuming travelers have easy access to and are facile with mobile internet. If a traveler does not have an electronic device with internet access to provide the information via this application, the paper version of the PLF is available.

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