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Delta Airlines is providing the U.S. government with electronic lists of passengers from certain flights in what's billed as a trial effort to stop the possible spread of deadly infectious diseases.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the passenger lists will enable health officials to provide faster notification to travelers who may have been exposed to infectious diseases such as SARS, flu, and dengue fever, and biological agents, the Associated Press reported.

Some privacy experts are concerned about the federal government collecting passengers' personal information.

"The government is seeing that massive amounts of data can be useful for any number of purposes. There need to be some regulations or restrictions on how airlines can share passenger information like this," Marcia Hoffmann, an attorney for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the AP.

Currently, the CDC must collect passenger information by hand from flight manifests, Customs declarations and other sources. Electronic access to airline data would speed up the CDC's ability to alert travelers who may be infected, the agency said.

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