The data was never used for enforcement purposes. (if it was.. it wasn't very efficient at all)
I also don’t care how harmless or good the CDC might be to someone. A government entity should not be a using tax payer money to purchase privacy sensitive data of citizens.
Nothing nefarious going on here, right? It's not like they are bypassing constitution here and checking if one visited place of worship, are they?
[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/timmarchman/status/15214777908135...
This was the least expensive and most responsible way to conduct this study. What alternative would you provide? Just not doing it?
An interesting proposal.
With dieases similar to covid, measles, etc .. it's an invaluable tool to be able to determine how, and where infection occured. This allowed for some fantastic studies and finds in Korea. (I.e. https://jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10.3346/jkms.2020.35.e415 would not have been possible without the phone data)