Aircraft owners, speak up for your privacy

The recent change may solve more than one problem, though the FAA also may hear arguments in coming days against the new policy that Congress required (and AOPA advocated to include) in the 2024 FAA reauthorization.

Supporters of the new policy generally cite privacy concerns. More than one made specific reference to the Drivers Privacy Protection Act of 1994, which was passed in response to various abuses of motor vehicle owners' privacy stemming from public access to state motor vehicle records—including the 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer, who was stalked and killed by an individual who obtained her address from the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Under that 1994 law, state DMVs must withhold names and addresses of vehicle owners from the public. Aircraft owners have enjoyed no such protection until very recently.

Withholding “personally identifiable information" from "broad dissemination or display by the FAA” could help address concerns about the use of ADS-B data for other than its intended purpose, air traffic safety and efficiency, but current law has exceptions for the FAA to share this information with a government agency “pursuant to a government contract, subcontract, or agreement, including for traffic management purposes,” which the FAA noted in its request for public comment.

Depending on interpretation, a policy that complies with the 2024 law should at least hinder, if not inhibit, the collection of airport landing fees based on ADS-B data, a relatively new business model in which a nongovernment third-party entity sends invoices to aircraft owners on behalf of airports that assess landing fees. It could also help inhibit litigation against aircraft owners by members of the public, another of the reasons that AOPA President Darren Pleasance asked the acting FAA administrator and members of Congress in February to stop allowing ADS-B data to be used “for frivolous lawsuits, questionable enforcement actions, and the collection of airport landing fees.”

Submitting comments in support of the FAA’s aircraft registration privacy policy is not the only way to speak up. In Florida, one of the states where the use of ADS-B-based data to help collect landing fees began to crop up in 2024, AOPA member Donald Frano recently launched an online petition calling on the FAA to halt the use of ADS-B data for billing.

“We must fiercely safeguard the promise [ADS-B] would be used for safety and not other purposes beyond its intent,” said Frano, whose petition was closing in on 1,500 signatures by April 17.

“This is a passionate issue for many pilots,” said AOPA Southern Regional Manager Stacey Heaton, who continues to work with Frano and other concerned pilots seeking solutions. “It is a bit of a double whammy for our members, particularly those who are Part 91 operators. ADS-B equipment and installation cost aircraft owners several thousands of dollars, and now it is being used against them. ADS-B is being used for other non-safety-related things and if gone unfettered it will most certainly deter other pilots from equipping with this safety enhancing tool.”

In Montana, state Rep. Shane Klakken (R-Grass Range), also an AOPA member, proposed a bill to prohibit the use of ADS-B data for fee collection by both public and private airports. The legislation passed both houses—with a final Senate vote on April 16—and now goes to the governor.

Pleasance noted that this state-level effort to “curb ADS-B mission creep” is appreciated, and “further reinforces the need for a national policy upholding the FAA’s original commitment to aircraft owners that ADS-B devices would not be used for purposes unrelated to safety or airspace efficiency.”

Comments averse to the FAA’s new registration privacy policy may come from airport operators who assess landing fees using ADS-B, data, from attorneys who create corporate entities to establish a privacy firewall for clients who own aircraft, or from the private companies that provide billing services to airport owners. They most likely will struggle to marshal cogent arguments against withholding from the public personal information such as names, addresses, and contact information of registered aircraft owners.

The details of how the registration privacy policy is implemented moving forward will determine to what degree it alleviates AOPA’s various concerns about the use of the data for purposes beyond its original intent. AOPA will watch closely to see, for example, if state or local airport authorities are allowed to pass an aircraft owner's personal information to a third-party billing provider.

At a minimum, it offers some protection against public stalking of aircraft owners for nefarious purposes, including identity theft, nuisance litigation, and worse.

AOPA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Advocacy Jim Coon noted that the aircraft registration privacy system is voluntary, leaving it up to individual owners to decide whether to withhold their name and address—the same policy that applies to pilots who are all listed in the FAA airmen registry.

Coon added that continuing to expose aircraft owners to more risk—and cost—by having their personal information available to the public is a disincentive to helping the aviation industry as a whole realize the safety benefits that ADS-B was created to enable.

“ADS-B was intended to be, and is, a safety tool and all of these uses will have a chilling effect on more pilots equipping with this safety technology,” Coon said. “We don’t want others to put economics above safety.”