The first blocks it from showing up on sites like flightradar24 which filters out LADD aircraft.
The second makes it so you can't go from tail number to tracking the aircraft once the ICAO has changed and ADSB Exchange doesn't manually update their database of which pseudonymous ICAO numbers are connected to which tail numbers.
ADS-B allows planes to track each other during flight so they don’t crash into each other. It is public because that’s the point: to broadcast their location publicly.
All those FAA rules do is mask it in their own public data set that they make available. Anyone with their own data set (aka an SDR at SMO if they’re trying to stalk Musk) like ADSBExchange is not required to mask that data and any law trying force them would run afoul of the first amendment and compromise aviation, since ADS-B makes flight safer for hundreds of thousands of pilots.
However on your second point you seem to be confusing two different things. There's two different systems that you're lumping together as one. The one you're talking about is LADD. Discussed here: https://www.faa.gov/pilots/ladd
FAA even caveats themselves:
> ADS-B Out transmits flight data directly from the aircraft to internet vendors not participating in the LADD program. Non-participating internet vendors collect and post all ADS-B Out flight data on the internet. To address ADS-B Out privacy concerns, the FAA has initiated the Privacy ICAO Address (PIA) program to improve the privacy of eligible aircraft.
Now to your point, you're incorrect. PIA, as mentioned in that quote by the FAA, literally changes the aircraft's ICAO number to a new number and delists it from public registries. Using an SDR or the data from ADSB Exchange only gets you that psuedonomynous ID. Once that's changed again you have to stalk someone by following them to the airport and align the takeoff time of when you know they left with the new ICAO number. That's the ethically/morally/legally quesitonable aspect about all of this.
> In order to mitigate these concerns, FAA has initiated the Privacy ICAO aircraft address program with the objective of improving the privacy of aircraft operators in today's ADS-B environment by limiting the extent to which the aircraft can be quickly and easily identified by non-U.S. government entities, while ensuring there is no adverse effect on ATC services.
Thank you for the link, I wasn’t aware that PIA allowed spoofing the identifier.
Maaaybe it’s more ethically/morally questionable [1] but I don’t think it’s a legal issue. Reading more on the PIA, it still require the owner to have their own operational security. Like you said it’s pseudoanonymous and I can’t find any obligations it places on third parties. Nothing stops someone putting a camera on top of their hangar pointed at SMO’s runways and correlate the tail number to ADS-B.
[1] or in this case Musk’s actions on Twitter are less ethically/morally/legally questionable?
I mention legal as in some jurisdictions stalking is illegal which this may fall under. I am not a lawyer though, so I only give it as an open question that I myself have.
> Like you said it’s pseudoanonymous and I can’t find any obligations it places on third parties. Nothing stops someone putting a camera on top of their hangar pointed at SMO’s runways and correlate the tail number to ADS-B.
That's true, but that falls into the stalking or doxxing category and Twitter already had long standing terms of service statements against doxxing, even before Elon bought Twitter, even if it's not illegal (which I still have open questions about).
I definitely see your point, I’d be consulting a bunch of lawyers if I were Sweeney just to be sure. California’s (cyber)stalking/harassment laws are pretty specific on what constitutes doxxing and stalking, though. For the sake of this conversation between laymen, I just don’t see it.
Musk can do whatever he wants on twitter and IANAL so what do I know, but between the public interest argument and the public availability of the information, I don’t think Musk has a reasonable expectation of privacy.
That said, anyone using the information to follow him around or harass him is liable to get prosecuted.
https://www.faa.gov/pilots/ladd
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/equipadsb/privacy
The first blocks it from showing up on sites like flightradar24 which filters out LADD aircraft.
The second makes it so you can't go from tail number to tracking the aircraft once the ICAO has changed and ADSB Exchange doesn't manually update their database of which pseudonymous ICAO numbers are connected to which tail numbers.
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