Privacy with ADS-B

[Mooneymuscle56m]

I was curious if anyone here has looked into this:

https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/equipadsb/privacy/

 

[kortopates]

I don't have the slightest concern for privacy of my use of NAS even if I am a major celebrity with millions watching my every step

I am certainly not willing to pay for it either. Although the PIA program doesn't mention fees , I am sure it will eventually when its " transitioned to the third-party service provider " that I am sure will be making its profit off the fees of its program participants. But I am sure some people will be appreciate the opportunity to keep their flights private.

The other downsides:

- After you apply, you have to do the ADS/B test flight to show its working properly with your new call sign 

participation in the PIA program is limited to 1090 equipped aircraft - leaving out UAT equipped (but they can use anonymous mode but only flying without a flight plan and without ATC services)

- its only valid for domestic flights, thus when leaving US airspace you have to reprogram your 1090 transponder back to your real call sign (N number) & ICAO address, then after you return back in US airspace you can go back to your PIA assigned info.

I am sure there will be many takers, but I am not interested 

[jaylw314]

4 minutes ago, kortopates said:

I don't have the slightest concern for privacy of my use of NAS even if I am a major celebrity with millions watching my every step

I am certainly not willing to pay for it either. Although the PIA program doesn't mention fees , I am sure it will eventually when its " transitioned to the third-party service provider " that I am sure will be making its profit off the fees of its program participants. But I am sure some people will be appreciate the opportunity to keep their flights private.

The other downsides:

- After you apply, you have to do the ADS/B test flight to show its working properly with your new call sign 

participation in the PIA program is limited to 1090 equipped aircraft - leaving out UAT equipped (but they can use anonymous mode but only flying without a flight plan and without ATC services)

- its only valid for domestic flights, thus when leaving US airspace you have to reprogram your 1090 transponder back to your real call sign (N number) & ICAO address, then after you return back in US airspace you can go back to your PIA assigned info.

I am sure there will be many takers, but I am not interested 

I agree, that phrase makes me think this is going to be a pay-to-play service for the exec-jet types, but maybe I'm wrong.

On the other hand, those downsides are fairly trivial:

• The test flights sound like they don't have to be in "rule" airspace or have any minimum duration like the rebate requirements did.
• Likewise, my understanding is all (almost?) 1090 ES transponders can change call signs from the startup menu.  You have to do this whenever you use the Angel Flight callsign, for example

[kortopates]

3 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

• Likewise, my understanding is all (almost?) 1090 ES transponders can change call signs from the startup menu.  You have to do this whenever you use the Angel Flight callsign, for example

Yes, but this involves changing the registered ICAO address to the PIA assigned address in addition to the call sign which isn't quite so easy. For Angel flights you are only changing the call sign. Not sure since I've never done it, but I'd expect it would require going into set up/configure mode. Although likely doable, not something the pilot is suppose to do.

[GeeBee]

There is no privacy anymore. ADS-B is the least of your problems if you are looking for privacy.

 

[Mooneymuscle56m]

My concern is I filed IFR out of an airport 4-5 times for a 3 week period.  Not my homebase or state.  I get a letter in the mail from the state demanding sales tax/ use tax or file an exemption.  If you ignore them they can lien your aircraft.

Maybe they saw my plane on the ramp, maybe they got on flightaware. 

I don’t want every greedy government chasing me for sales tax/use tax because I land in their state. Government is out of control. 

ADS-B is another tool they will use to chase people.  

[LANCECASPER]

14 minutes ago, Mooneymuscle56m said:

My concern is I filed IFR out of an airport 4-5 times for a 3 week period.  Not my homebase or state.  I get a letter in the mail from the state demanding sales tax/ use tax or file an exemption.  If you ignore them they can lien your aircraft.

Maybe they saw my plane on the ramp, maybe they got on flightaware. 

I don’t want every greedy government chasing me for sales tax/use tax because I land in their state. Government is out of control. 

ADS-B is another tool they will use to chase people.  

Pay for a consult with an aviation attorney (or pay a small fee for AOPA legal services) and see what the laws are in the states you plan on going to. You may find that there's little to be concerned about.

[GeeBee]

Why do you believe filing IFR made a difference?

Is it possible credit card data? FBO list. etc? Big Data is everywhere.

 

 

 

[Mooneymuscle56m]

I assumed filing IFR left the paper trail.  I doubt a private entity like an FBO would turn over customer information.  
 

I usually think government employees are the lazy type, driving around the ramp with a notepad or logging onto flightaware seems like the easiest way to find “tax evaders.”
 

[GeeBee]

Credit cards, your phone, internet usage they all leave a trail. AMEX has one of the best heuristics systems out there which is why you never have to call them to tell them you are going to a foreign country. All those loyalty programs, etc all feed data to Google, Facebook et al who distribute it to anyone willing to pay for it and it is amazing cheap. I buy Facebook ads and I can target an audience down to the street and what for instance what type of pilot certificate they hold. It is unbelievably cheap. Your N-Number is displayed on a variety of sources VFR or IFR. If you parked transient, airports often log the information for ADAP funding purposes etc. Your assumption is less perfect.

Go to any website, BestBuy, Amazon whatever and look for a product. Then go to Yahoo.com and see what ads pop up.

I keep telling people, there is no privacy anymore. You can be "off the grid" but it is really, really hard. If you have any mobile device, forget it.

 

 

 

[Marauder]

I wonder how all this plays with the new European GDPR laws. California also just introduced their version of it.


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[chrisk]

On 11/18/2019 at 9:01 AM, Mooneymuscle56m said:

My concern is I filed IFR out of an airport 4-5 times for a 3 week period.  Not my homebase or state.  I get a letter in the mail from the state demanding sales tax/ use tax or file an exemption.  If you ignore them they can lien your aircraft.

Maybe they saw my plane on the ramp, maybe they got on flightaware. 

I don’t want every greedy government chasing me for sales tax/use tax because I land in their state. Government is out of control. 

ADS-B is another tool they will use to chase people.  

To me, this is a reasonable concern.  See the article.

https://www.advocatetax.com/state-tax-departments-chase-transient-aircraft-for-new-sales-tax-revenue-2/

With ADS-B, its not just ATC that is a concern.  Other sights like flight-aware sniff for ADS-B traffic and report location and history.  I believe some transponders have an "anonymous" mode.

That said, I don't worry about it.   However if I owned property in another state, I might want to avoid part year residency issues for income and aircraft tax.  NY and FL might be good examples to look at.

 

 

[N201MKTurbo]

There are geeks out there who are acquiring ADS-B signals and supplying it to FlightAware and others. There will be people who will sit at the end of runways and report N numbers vs PIA numbers. It’s going to become a game and the geeks are going to win.

I doubt the ID of these aircraft will be secret for more than a few days.

[Steve W]

28 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

There are geeks out there who are acquiring ADS-B signals and supplying it to FlightAware and others. There will be people who will sit at the end of runways and report N numbers vs PIA numbers. It’s going to become a game and the geeks are going to win.

I doubt the ID of these aircraft will be secret for more than a few days.

With data mining these days it would be trivial to figure out the mappings if someone gets bored and writes some code. X flies from A to B often, new ADS-B ID Y shows up doing the same thing, well, it's probably X, track things like cruise speed, climb and descent profiles and you can be pretty sure you got the same plane. Add in planespotters like you mention and it's really not going to make much difference. 

[EricJ]

3 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

There are geeks out there who are acquiring ADS-B signals and supplying it to FlightAware and others. There will be people who will sit at the end of runways and report N numbers vs PIA numbers. It’s going to become a game and the geeks are going to win.

I doubt the ID of these aircraft will be secret for more than a few days.

There's an area up around Pinnacle Peak ( a bit NE of Scottsdale) that somebody up there considers a wildlife refuge.   If you fly over it below a particular altitude you'll get a threatening letter in the mail from a law office in downtown Phoenix.  The claim is that you're disturbing the wildlife.   It isn't a protected area of any kind, just somebody doesn't want you to fly over it.  The letter is really of no concern and I considered framing it, since it's sent registered mail and they're paying something like $7 just for postage to send each of these out.   With the labor and everything else I'm guessing it's costing somebody around $20-$30 every time they mail one of these things.  

I was really torn.   I love animals, but I'd also love to troll whoever is doing that and see how much money I could cost them in nasty letters from lawyers.

I've elected to just stay a little higher.   I've lost some of my youthful fight, I'm afraid. 

I don't know how they'd be able to do this without sniffing the ADS-B signals, which is easy enough to do.  I'm a privacy advocate, but there's not much point when it comes to aviation, so it really doesn't bother me.    If you do sketchy stuff, well, then, yeah, you might want to take measures.

 

[INA201]

Cant you just turn of your transponder out of most airspace when not IFR? This of course is assuming you want pure anonimity.

[Andy95W]

4 hours ago, INA201 said:

Cant you just turn of your transponder out of most airspace when not IFR? This of course is assuming you want pure anonimity.

Unfortunately, no.  If you have a transponder installed and are flying in controlled airspace (which means Class E, or generally 1200 AGL and above) you must have it on.

(c) Transponder-on operation. While in the airspace as specified in paragraph (b) of this section or in all  controlled airspace, each  personoperating an  aircraft equipped with an operable  ATC transponder maintained in accordance with § 91.413 of this part shall operate the transponder, including Mode C equipment if installed, and shall reply on the appropriate code or as assigned by  ATC, unless otherwise directed by  ATC when transmitting would jeopardize the safe execution of  air traffic control functions.

[INA201]

8 hours ago, Andy95W said:

Unfortunately, no.  If you have a transponder installed and are flying in controlled airspace (which means Class E, or generally 1200 AGL and above) you must have it on.

(c) Transponder-on operation. While in the airspace as specified in paragraph (b) of this section or in all  controlled airspace, each  personoperating an  aircraft equipped with an operable  ATC transponder maintained in accordance with § 91.413 of this part shall operate the transponder, including Mode C equipment if installed, and shall reply on the appropriate code or as assigned by  ATC, unless otherwise directed by  ATC when transmitting would jeopardize the safe execution of  air traffic control functions.

I read through the entire section.  Good information to know.  I was under the impression that it was only required in ADSB installation requirement airspace.  Fortunately, I have always left mine on.

[flyer338]

I looked up a couple of my flights between MHR (near Sacramento CA) and FOT (on the northern CA coast) and found that Flight Aware lost the track about half way. I think this might be because I was not in range of any ADS-B ground stations for that part of the flight.

[EricJ]

8 hours ago, flyer338 said:

I looked up a couple of my flights between MHR (near Sacramento CA) and FOT (on the northern CA coast) and found that Flight Aware lost the track about half way. I think this might be because I was not in range of any ADS-B ground stations for that part of the flight.

"Ground stations" being the amateur receivers that are used to feed Flight Aware, flightradar24, etc.   They aren't fed by the gov towers.   I think the coverage of the amateur receiver network is actually better than the actual ADS-B towers, but there are still holes.   Sometimes on Flight Aware even if the whole track is shown, part of it in the middle might be an interpolated straight line, where coverage was lost for a bit.   I've seen that quite a bit, too.

I get the "no TIS-B" warning on my IFD pretty frequently, which suggests that there's a fair amount of time that I'm not in ADS-B tower coverage.   I checked the map of where the towers are and it does seem to correlate.

 

[Skates97]

On 11/19/2019 at 2:28 PM, EricJ said:

There's an area up around Pinnacle Peak ( a bit NE of Scottsdale) that somebody up there considers a wildlife refuge.   If you fly over it below a particular altitude you'll get a threatening letter in the mail from a law office in downtown Phoenix.  The claim is that you're disturbing the wildlife.   It isn't a protected area of any kind, just somebody doesn't want you to fly over it.  The letter is really of no concern and I considered framing it, since it's sent registered mail and they're paying something like $7 just for postage to send each of these out.   With the labor and everything else I'm guessing it's costing somebody around $20-$30 every time they mail one of these things.  

I was really torn.   I love animals, but I'd also love to troll whoever is doing that and see how much money I could cost them in nasty letters from lawyers.

I've elected to just stay a little higher.   I've lost some of my youthful fight, I'm afraid. 

I don't know how they'd be able to do this without sniffing the ADS-B signals, which is easy enough to do.  I'm a privacy advocate, but there's not much point when it comes to aviation, so it really doesn't bother me.    If you do sketchy stuff, well, then, yeah, you might want to take measures.

 

Hmmm... Next time I'm out visiting family and taking people flightseeing perhaps we will take a tour of the area... I love animals too, but I have hiked and rock climbed all around Pinnacle Peak and surrounding areas before a lot of the development that is there now existed. I doubt the planes disturb the wildlife anymore than all the hikers.

Maybe I'm younger than you and haven't lost my fight, or maybe I'm older and more ornery.