FAA CARES: block ownership info on aircraft registry portal

[shawnd]

So folks have probably seen articles about random people looking up contact information on FAA aircraft registry after tracking them via ADS-B aggregators. AOPA worked with FAA to provide a way for owners to request opting out of showing the owner information on the aircraft registry.  Just went through it and submitted my request - takes about 2 weeks apparently for the review to be completed. 

Site: https://cares.faa.gov/home

The process was a bit confusing as trying to login to "Aircraft Services" takes you to the FAA MyAccess sign on page which folks may already have accounts on for their "Airmen Services" portal. I had to sign up again using the red "Don't have an account? Sign up" which then connected my previous account and verified my address. Once you are in - you may or may not see your aircraft listed. I didn't. But I followed the steps that appears on a yellow banner on the top of the site (good ux there...), here it is again broken down neatly:
 

1. To submit a request through CARES, Log into your CARES account
2. Select Get Started
3. Select Aircraft Services
4. Select Submit Other Aircraft Documents
5. For Request Type choose Other Supporting Documents
6. For Document Type choose Other
7. Upload File (see template below)
8. Select Continue
9. Complete Attestation and Submit.

I asked my AI friend to generate a template, it looks sufficient and drives the point home. I filled in the right information including the [Insert N-Number(s)] and [Insert Full Name as Registered] in the middle of the document, then saved as PDF and uploaded it to the portal where it requested to upload file in step 7.

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[Your Full Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP Code]
[Phone Number]
[Email Address]

[Date]

Federal Aviation Administration
Aircraft Registration Branch, AFS-750
P.O. Box 25504
Oklahoma City, OK 73125

Subject: Request for Withholding of Owner Information from Public Dissemination
Reference: 49 U.S.C. § 44114(b)

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to formally request that my name and address, as a registered owner of aircraft, be withheld from public dissemination in accordance with 49 U.S.C. § 44114(b). I understand that the FAA permits private individuals to voluntarily opt out of having their ownership information made available to the public, and I wish to exercise this right.

Please consider this letter my official request to have my personally identifiable information—including my name and address—removed from all publicly accessible databases and records related to aircraft registration, to the fullest extent allowed under applicable law.

Aircraft Registration Number(s): [Insert N-Number(s)]
Registered Owner Name: [Insert Full Name as Registered]

If additional documentation or verification is required to process this request, please contact me at the phone number or email address provided above. I appreciate your assistance and attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
[Your Signature (if mailing a hard copy)]
[Your Printed Name]

----------

I hope this helps some folks. Good luck! And yes, I am still giggling at the title...

Shawn

[76Srat]

This is perfect--what a great bit of advice.  Thanks for supplying this and sharing your process.  I still think it sucks that we have to establish multiple online accounts with the FAA (using different interfaces and even different vendors supplying the services to the FAA), just to apply for a medical or inquire/establish something with the Registry.  CAMI and Civil Aircraft Registry buildings are merely a few yards away from each other in OKC.  Why they don't use the same online portal will forever baffle me.  

[TangoTango]

I've been following this on the other forum, glad to see you posted an easy to follow guide here.

I just submitted mine, I got an "estimated review date" of 4/15/25. Curious to see what action the FAA takes at that time, as 49 USC §44114 reads to me as not requiring a procedure for compliance until 5/16/26 (two years from the enactment of this Act). Has anyone completed this and actually seen their personally identifiable information removed yet?

[76Srat]

Also curious to see how the Registry will be able to reconcile this with its own regulations governing the requirements of the registration of Aircraft generally (49 USC 44101 et seq; and 14 CFR 47 and 49).  In classic form, one reg requires that the FAA provide for methods of keeping your information private, but doesn't say how or where that information is otherwise supposed to be accessible, as required by the very regs that establish the Registry in the first place.  

You may not think this makes a hill of beans difference and that privacy is the key component here.  It isn't and it makes a helluva a hill of beans difference.  The very reason for Registry records in the first place is (was) to equip the enforcement agencies with the ability to find out who owns an airplane operated in US airspace***.  Circa 1999, our friends at the Aeronautical Center Counsel's office in OKC issued a letter (just a letter, not a "ruling" or "regulation", but a guidance "letter" to all Registry examiners) requiring that "physical addresses be included in all 8050-1 forms filed with the Registry".  How's that sit with you?  Why should we have to comply with that?  Nowhere in the then-regs did it require that your physical address be included in your documents filed in OKC anytime you wished to register your ownership of an aircraft once you bought it.  FAA Registry documents examiners began immediately rejecting ownership and registration documents filed that didn't comply with that unpublished requirement.  Perhaps some of us on here experienced this joy, which also caused some of us to operate unknowingly in violation of Registration requirements if such flights occurred beyond the 90 day "temporary" (pink copy) registration carried on board without having had the final registration card issued in the interim.  

Anyway, when queried about this craziness, the answer was twofold:  "the FAA has been instructed by DOT and Treasury and Dept of State to require the physical location of where each US registered aircraft is to be based" and second, "the FAA has an interest in maintaining safe flight operations of all aircraft operated in US airspace".  What???  Seriously, those were the answers.  In reality, when pushed further on the topic and at multiple seminars following this silly unpublished change in the regs, ACC finally admitted it was so drug trafficking could be tracked more accurately and then it became a firm requirement once the disaster that was 9/11 happened.  Thus, we've been required to show a physical address ever since.

So guess what this triggered?  Yes, you guess correctly:  my aircraft is "physically located" at my hangar and I don't receive mail or notices at my hangar, because, well, my hangar doesn't have a f*cking address.  The FAA hadn't thought of that.  Remember the most recent debacle about requiring the "re-registration" of the triennial registration requirements?  All of that was birthed by the ignorance of the FAA's own regulations about providing a proper address for registration purposes.  The "physical location" of the aircraft requirement caused the removal of thousands of actual mailing addresses for FAA notices and manufacturer notices to reach the aircraft-owning pilot community.  It's taken decades since to resolve.

All of this to say that you may not think that what goes on at the FAA Civil Aircraft Registry affects you nearly as often as what goes on at Aeromedical, but it does.  I argue it likely affects us more because the Registry records are one of the easiest ways to commit fraud using aircraft records.  They're all there to see, as you wish.  All of your financial data found in your loan documents on that fancy Mooney you just bought are in those FAA Registry records.  Hopefully you used a proper aircraft title company in OKC and a proper aircraft lender who knows what not to include in those filings, but if you didn't, your info is there for all to see and the bad guys to exploit.

Finally, think about this:  next time you do a pre-buy and make an offer on a plane to purchase and you run a title search (which you should, always), how does availing oneself of these new privacy regs hurt your due diligence on important matters such as who owns the aircraft and, more importantly, who holds a valid encumbrance against that collateral?  This reg is so vague and useless by its language and text that it will yet again open Pandora's box on more craziness that was never intended.  Think that you'll always be able to review the records on a plane you're looking at, like we all could in the old days?  Maybe and likely not, going forward.  

Welcome to FAA Registry Operations in the new age . . .

***Fun fact:  ever wonder about those really old tail numbers you see in those really old photos, or perhaps even on the tail of some classic aircraft today, e.g. "N31178" on the tail of a 1940 Piper J-3?  In the pre-DOT/pre-Civil Aircraft Registry days, circa 1958 and prior, the manufacturers assigned successive N numbers to the aircraft rolling out of their factories, which generally coincided with when that particular aircraft was registered with the Dept of War (the predecessor of our friendly, modern FAA Registry).  Aside from a few exceptions through the decades, next time you're strolling the vintage ramp at Airventure, which everyone should do every year, you can safely assume that those airplanes bearing those old numbers were the "x" aircraft ever built in the US.  So in 1940, N31178 (a 1940 J-3) was presumably the thirty-one thousandth and change airplane ever manufactured in the US.  Seeing that there are now ~600,000+ US registered aircraft operating daily and airworthy currently (with legion more than that manufactured throughout history), I've always thought its rather cool to see an old aircraft with an old NC tail number.     

 

 

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, 76Srat said:

 So in 1940, N31178 (a 1940 J-3) was presumably the thirty-one thousandth and change airplane ever manufactured in the US.  Seeing that there are now ~600,000+ US registered aircraft operating daily and airworthy currently (with legion more than that manufactured throughout history), I've always thought its rather cool to see an old aircraft with an old NC tail number.     

My 46 C-140’s NC number is 77121, a neighbor has a 140 only a couple of numbers from mine, I had always assumed Cessna had reserved a block of numbers from the CAA, CAA came into being in 1934 I think?

I don’t think Military aircraft were issued numbers?

Edited April 4 by A64Pilot

[76Srat]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

My 46 C-140’s NC number is 77121, a neighbor has a 140 only a couple of numbers from mine, I had always assumed Cessna had reserved a block of numbers from the CAA, CAA came into being in 1934 I think?

I don’t think Military aircraft were issued numbers?

Correct that military aircraft weren't issued civilian registrations, though many civilian aircraft were used militarily (L-birds being the easiest to mention).

And to clarify my earlier statement, the CAA would issue successive numbers to each manufacturer, so for example Taylorcraft would have its allotted numbers, as would Cessna/Beech/Piper, etc.  So your C140 being a couple of numbers away from your neighbor's likely would have rolled out of Wichita one or two ships away from his.  Either way, the earliest of registration numbers (N numbers, for the US) were successive and not vanity or custom like we can do today.