Did You Know Idaho Automatically Tracks Your Child’s Vaccine Status?
Health Freedom Idaho brought this to the forefront in 2016, as one of the first issues we trackled as an organization. Yet, here we are in 2024 still trying to get the government to ASK PERMISSION to track our children’s medical information in a tri-state database.
HB 397 PASSED THE HOUSE is now waiting to be heard in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee:
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Let the Committee Know to APPROVE HB397 which provides transparency and allows parents to OPT OUT of vaccine tracking
How Does the Tracking Work?
IRIS is the name of the system that doctors, daycares and schools have access to and enter your children’s vaccination information without express consent at each visit or enrollment.
It is said you can OPT-OUT. However, this system to OPT OUT requires you go to the Idaho Health Department after EACH VISIT or EACH ENROLLMENT to have your children’s information purged. The system was intentionally designed to be difficult and to keep parents in the dark about this data tracking.
House Majority Leader Megan Blanksma, R-Hammett, who is sponsoring House Bill 397, said she worried that Idahoans vaccination data — including for adults — is in Idaho’s vaccine database without them knowing. She referenced own experience finding out that her children’s and mother’s vaccine records were in the state database without their permission, after she opted out for her children. She also said Idaho’s vaccine database originally was “opt in” based.
As she closed debate on her bill, Blanksma said many Idahoans who received vaccines “don’t know that the government was collecting your data on that vaccine” because they weren’t given an informed consent form.
“That’s what should scare us more than anything else … that there’s data collection that people don’t know about, are completely unaware of. And that’s what this bill fixes,” Blanksma said. “It makes sure everyone knows where their medical data is going.”
Blanksma also said in the hearing that Idaho’s opt-out rate was low because it is difficult to opt out, and the bill would ensure that medical “providers don’t opt you in.”
“It’s become more complicated, and less transparent,” she said. “… Anytime the government is collecting your data, it should be transparent.”
This bill is expected to be heard in the House Floor on the week of Feb 7.
UPDATE: WIN!!! This bill passed the House and is moving on to the Senate Feb. 11 time to reach out to our Health and Welfare committee at the Senate side and ask for this bill to be heard and approved.
