Author: Jeff Simon
Publisher: Plane & Pilot
Publication Year: 2020
Summary: The following article discusses how airplanes are being tracked every second of the day. If you decide to take a flight from RDU to ATL, anyone around the world can track that flight and see when you have landed in ATL, and this is because airplane flight data is public data. This ADB-S data is available and is helpful for air traffic control, so it has its benefits. But anyone who tracks this information or has access to it is able to share this sort of information with anyone. Recently, there was a kid who was tracking Elon Musk’s jet and made his code available to the public so it was possible for others to track other famous people or track Elon Musk as well. It is possible for companies to have their flight data private, however, through the Freedom of Information Act, data like this can eventually be made available. So flight data cannot remain private and this can hurt individuals such as celebrities and athletes from hiding their own privacy.