You can track my plane when I can track your car. Both are capable of nefarious deeds -- as is a bicycle, backpack, or hoodie.
The only thing special about private aircraft is people picturing some high-dollar gulfstream, and aiming a bit of jealousy at the people who own and operate them. Some of us fly planes that cost less than your Tesla and would prefer not to be painted with that broad of a brush.
There is reasonable argument that it is not much difference between tracking someone car and tracking someone private jet. But super-rich are outgroup so most people who would strongly oppose the first case would not care in the second case.
The fact that there is flight data system is not much relevant, it could be modified to anonymize data.
Well, rich and poor people are equally subject to tracking when they travel in their private jets. That seems fair. They can use untracked modes of travel like public transit or cars.
We're okay with tracking planes. It's unclear why this should change when it's privately owned by an individual instead of by an airline.
There are actually plenty of reasons we might want to treat air traffic different, regardless of who's on board or who owns the plane. Whether it's because planes are significantly less private by nature of being very noisy and visible (i.e. there's less of an expectation of privacy because you're being very public), or because they're a greater risk to everyone because they're in the air and full of fuel (i.e. you have a legitimate interest to know whether one might fly near you).
And I just pointed out to you that the movement of private planes is already far more public than the movement of private cars, and for good reasons. The account isn't (as far as I know, I've never looked at it) actually doing their own tracking; they are simply (I assume) collating public information from air traffic control authorities, etc.
If your neighbors are traveling by personal aircraft then it is very much the same thing. There are a lot of privately owned GA aircraft and many of us don't particularly like everyone snooping on us.
Many in this community get awfully nervous about things like police surveillance of cars, license plate tracking, etc. The Police say they need it just for special cases like crime, but we all know the dangers of dragnet surveillance. This is also dragnet surveillance; it's the same violation of privacy if the mode of transportation is different. Many on this forum think it's fun though because the mechanism is a bit nerdy and they aren't the ones being surveilled.
People keep saying that yet no one has been able to define to me what “legitimate interest” the public has for tracking a private plane. I don’t believe one exists.
If you are sure of yourself, do a little experiment. If you truly believe it’s legitimate, why not just buy an AirTag and hide it on a person’s car…perhaps a local well known business owner. Create a website that publishes the live location of the vehicle. Let us know here how that goes for you.
The necessity of private jets is beside the point.
At issue is whether or not tracking private travel should be accessible to everyone with an internet connection.
Most people would not be ok with tracking private vehicles, and it’s unclear why this should change when the mode of transportation is a plane instead of a car.
Tracking the jet owned by the person, which as others have pointed out, often is rented out for others to use (or they let friends, coworkers, etc take trips)
> Nobody feels bad for some millionaire's private jet getting tracked
This might quickly change. Now people are somewhat routinely tracking millionaire's private jets and shaming them for what they perceive as inappropriate use. Given how the law correlates much more with the interests of the types of people owning private jets than with the interests of the average citizen, we might see attempts to get that outlawed.
If I buy a [legal private means of transportation] to travel, people should be able to track my whereabouts.
Is this limited to private jets? How about private boats? Single engine airplanes? Or is there a price cap? Is a $50k plane allow you to maintain privacy? 100k? What's the cutoff? Should it be inflation adjusted?
Musk (or one of his associates, I forget which) has in the past posted pictures online of him walking to and from his aircraft with the registration clearly visible. It's not something he even tried to hide.
It's almost never difficult to find out what private jets companies and celebrities own in any case, except when obfuscated behind multiple layers of shell companies and with strict opsec, neither of which Musk practiced.
Every aircraft is tracked and trackable this way, only Musk is turning it into a big deal using outrageous claims about safety. Get real.
If you are wealthy enough to buy a jet, the public is entitled to know where that jet is flying, because such info has been shown to prevent accidents (which endangers the public and costs money to taxpayers).
If you are wealthy enough and that tracking rubs you the wrong way, you are free to take public transportation like the rest of us. If Congress can do it, so can Musk.
Clearly nothing is stopping someone from doing that anyway, but also nobody ever knows if Elon is actually on any of the three planes tracked (unless he posts about where he's going or where he is). They're not even his personal planes, they're owned by his companies and used by other people. If he's that worried about a stalker he should just charter a jet instead of flying on jets associated with him or his companies, then nobody would know.
Private jets are required to paint 12" high registration markings on both sides of their fuselage. Owner data is public record, although often obscured by holding corporations. The data used to contain SSNs if you can imagine it.
I'm unclear what jet aviation risk we are equating to hazmat ground transport. It's not raining aluminum very often, and it's a news frenzy when it does happen.
Every time I read "private jets should X" I can only ever boil it down to envy or "because I have the right to know", which I personally don't agree with. I seldom see things like "transporting that organ to its transplant patient via light jet is so carbon intensive -- why not use passenger aircraft cargo instead?" or other more nuanced takes.
For some, I imagine the opacity is worth the frightful cost of private aviation. I don't know what it is like to have millions of fans trying to figure out where I am at every waking moment, and the very idea is horrifying. I don't think any valid purpose is served by knowing where <star du jour>'s jet takes off from or lands at, and I don't think anyone is honestly looking skyward to FL410 and worrying about an aircraft part landing on them.
From other conversations about this topic, I thought it was interesting that the congresscritter who advanced the legislation is from the Bentonville AR region -- and crafty investors have tracked Walton jets to figure out where the high-level Walmart business meetings are happening, then making inferences about upcoming stock-moving deals. I thought that was fascinating. Humans are crafty, and humans with means who want privacy will find it, despite any number of laws passed. It all feels like wasted whack-a-mole effort to me.
@CelebJets tracks the private planes a bunch of celebrities including Oprah Winfrey. If a journalist or politician is rich enough to have their own private plane then that plane gets tracked.
The only thing special about private aircraft is people picturing some high-dollar gulfstream, and aiming a bit of jealousy at the people who own and operate them. Some of us fly planes that cost less than your Tesla and would prefer not to be painted with that broad of a brush.
reply