FAA Protecting Aircraft Owners Private Information?

Sadly, these days privacy is a myth. My wife last night was not happy about coming across another one of these "people finder" websites that had her name, address, and phone number publicly listed. She went through their process to have her information removed from that site as she has done others, but for each site you know of there are 50 you don't.

I have a co-worker who is from an older generation. He has no online presence, no social media, no internet at home, only a work provided email. He thought he was safe, until I showed him the results of Googling his name. Found his address, phone number, date of birth, where he went to school, photos of his house, his ex-wife, the list went on and on. It scary the amount of information being collected and shared about everyone these days.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Sadly, these days privacy is a myth. My wife last night was not happy about coming across another one of these "people finder" websites that had her name, address, and phone number publicly listed. She went through their process to have her information removed from that site as she has done others, but for each site you know of there are 50 you don't.

I have a co-worker who is from an older generation. He has no online presence, no social media, no internet at home, only a work provided email. He thought he was safe, until I showed him the results of Googling his name. Found his address, phone number, date of birth, where he went to school, photos of his house, his ex-wife, the list went on and on. It scary the amount of information being collected and shared about everyone these days.
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Hey, it just takes some time working. A close friend who was adopted got some small amounts of information disclosed as to his date and location of birth. After a while of digging I was able to find the identity of some family up there (who gave us the bum's rush, turned out to be his uncle). A little later I found the mom's identity (who had already died) but was able to find a living half sister who filled in some more information. I was also able to find and confirm his father's identity (the sister had an idea who it was and though he was dead already, I was able to hunt down some of his other relatives who were able to confirm things).

I received the diaries from the wife of a man who served with McArthur and was able to dig up her passport application and picture, and the service records and photos of him. Not only had he served in WWI and WWII but started his military career in the Spanish-American war (and what did we get out of that? Cuba, and we gave that back).

When my father passed recently, I did a deep dive looking for information on him and found stuff going back to his Navy service, law school graduation, and my birth announcement.

The FAA still disseminates all my certificates and ratings and my medical information to the general public. The only thing they think they have to suppress is my postal address which is the least of my concern.
 
Since the photo ID requirement, I have added no ratings, so Oliver and Wilber grace my piece of plastic.

That is a lot of years of personal non compliance, and inattention by the FAA. Suits me, I do have a "Real ID" drivers license, and expired passport.

Ron, how long does it take you to do those deep dives?
 
midwestpa24 said:
"people finder" websites that had her name, address, and phone number publicly listed.
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Which of course is ironic, since when I was growing up, well into adulthood, everybody's name, address and phone number was printed for all to see in phone books, available for free in your home, at any pay phone, local library, hotel room, etc.
 
RussR said:
Which of course is ironic, since when I was growing up, well into adulthood, everybody's name, address and phone number was printed for all to see in phone books, available for free in your home, at any pay phone, local library, hotel room, etc.
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And phone books had the option of an unlisted number long before the FAA.

I get that there are many sources of personal information out there. That does not mean anyone should just throw up their hands and do nothing to reduce it, nor does it mean that we should accept willful violation of the Privacy Act by the FAA. The FAA has finally recognized the latter, and I intend to make sure they honor their (new) commitment.

Nauga,
and his standard of conduct
 
geezer said:
Since the photo ID requirement, I have added no ratings, so Oliver and Wilber grace my piece of plastic.

That is a lot of years of personal non compliance, and inattention by the FAA. Suits me, I do have a "Real ID" drivers license, and expired passport.

Ron, how long does it take you to do those deep dives?
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I can get some hits back almost as fast as I can type the information into a few search services I use. Others it takes a bit of unravelling, but it takes a solid evening. Longer if I have to correspond with someone to get more information that isn't in the database. I've get about a 60 percent hit rate when I have to email or call someone (they'll talk to me and provide some useful information). Other times I get no answer or they don't want to talk.
 
Much better than I thought, but most of your searches are more recent than mine. Mostly 1940 and earlier.
 
Llewtrah381 said:
That stymied me at first as well but when following their directions for submitting this particular document I ultimately got to a “check this box to certify this is you and is accurate” kind of dialog. I clicked that and it was accepted. Now - who knows if it’ll pass muster when reviewed (by Apr 11, they said), but we’ll see. I’m thinking something as low risk (to the FAA) as this, which required creating an account that needed the last 4 of my SSAN and authenticated by texting me will probably let that suffice. We’ll see…
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I was able to log in, correct my name, then I went to find my aircraft to continue the process of removing my address.
No airplane connected to me.
(pretty sure I own one)
I used the CARES contact info to get the promised help and...

"CARES is currently not the system of record for the Aircraft Registry but is on-track to take over in the fall of this year. If your aircraft was not registered in CARES it will not show in your CARES Dashboard"

So, maybe in 6 months (unless they lie..which would be impossible. Unless they are funding-restricted..which is highly possible these days).
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I was able to log in, correct my name, then I went to find my aircraft to continue the process of removing my address.
No airplane connected to me.
(pretty sure I own one)
I used the CARES contact info to get the promised help and...

"CARES is currently not the system of record for the Aircraft Registry but is on-track to take over in the fall of this year. If your aircraft was not registered in CARES it will not show in your CARES Dashboard"

So, maybe in 6 months (unless they lie..which would be impossible. Unless they are funding-restricted..which is highly possible these days).
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Mine was the same. I just included a screenshot of my aircraft registration in the cares request. We’ll see if it works.
 
Curious if anyone has gotten any movement? My submission is still “pending’.
Not a complaint, figured they would get inundated.
 
Learnin’ to fly… said:
Curious if anyone has gotten any movement? My submission is still “pending’.
Not a complaint, figured they would get inundated.
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I just checked and same here. I put mine in 3/31 and they said it would be reviewed by 4/11 and then 4/15 but my info is still on the web. My guess is they were inundated plus the DOGE cuts are making it a challenge.
 
StraightnLevel said:
Are there any details available on what the “DOGE cuts” actually were, and in which departments?
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That was “my guess”, as I noted. My guess is, generically, given the “last in - first out” general approach of many of the cuts, organizations experiencing these unexpected cuts are needing to reprioritize tasks with remaining staff and this is probably not a high one.

Also a guess that the cuts aren’t generically going to improve their processing time.
 
Well, helpful or not, mine finally took effect. We’ll see if the mailers asking me if I want to sell my plane stop.
 
Llewtrah381 said:
Well, helpful or not, mine finally took effect. We’ll see if the mailers asking me if I want to sell my plane stop.
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Frustratingly, mine still has not.
 
Llewtrah381 said:
Well, helpful or not, mine finally took effect. We’ll see if the mailers asking me if I want to sell my plane stop.
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CARES says my request is still pending but a registry search on my N number shows all of the registered owner data fields are blank. That's good enough for me.

Nauga,
pulling the dirt back over
 
Check your N #'s on the FAA aircraft inquiry site. Once in effect you'll see this:
"The Registered owner has requested to keep this data private under Title 49 of the United States Code Section 44114."
 
Mine was updated as private on the FAA site but flightaware and adsb exchange still display it. I know I can anonymize my ads b info but I like for my family to get flight notifications
 
You don't have to outrun the bear, just your buddy - nothing is perfect, but freeze your credit, use online disciple (things like like Firefox and DuckDuckGo). End your sessions before navigating elsewhere. Gmail? Fine. Check mail, close out with a browser that deletes all on exit, start it backup. Or maybe use a VPN.

Don't provide your SSN at doctor's offices, don't use a debit card at ANY retail location. Don't click on those links, let the unknown number go to voice mail, install malware and anti-virus, don't install phone apps unless you have to, and disable/lock them down when you aren't using them. And look close at those phone settings. Yeah, a lot of your info is out there, but every bad actor doesn't have access to every compromised data source.

Changes needed - organizations are "hacked" because they're sloppy stewards of data - they come off a victims in the media - mostly they're not, not on this century; they're just sloppy, careless, or incompetent.
 
Sundancer said:
Changes needed - organizations are "hacked" because they're sloppy stewards of data - they come off a victims in the media - mostly they're not, not on this century; they're just sloppy, careless, or incompetent.
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It costs money to do things right, so many don't.
 
Llewtrah381 said:
Well, helpful or not, mine finally took effect. We’ll see if the mailers asking me if I want to sell my plane stop.
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I don't have an airplane anymore, and mine haven't stopped. Actually, it's worse, it's the IO-360-C1C engine overhaul flyers that haven't stopped, which I consider quite the pointed insult to injury lol.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I don't have an airplane anymore, and mine haven't stopped. Actually, it's worse, it's the IO-360-C1C engine overhaul flyers that haven't stopped, which I consider quite the pointed insult to injury lol.
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Ouch…
 
Llewtrah381 said:
Well, helpful or not, mine finally took effect. We’ll see if the mailers asking me if I want to sell my plane stop.
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nauga said:
CARES says my request is still pending but a registry search on my N number shows all of the registered owner data fields are blank. That's good enough for me.
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What is shown if you search your plane's tail number on FlightAware or similar services? Is the owner's name & city hidden there, too? (Just wondering, if FlightAware previously had that info in their database, did they subsequently remove it after the FAA request took effect, or did they keep displaying the previous info.)
 
Skepilot said:
What is shown if you search your plane's tail number on FlightAware or similar services? Is the owner's name & city hidden there, too? (Just wondering, if FlightAware previously had that info in their database, did they subsequently remove it after the FAA request took effect, or did they keep displaying the previous info.)
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For FA it shows “Unknown user” and for 24 “Private user”. A quick search of my N number brings up some third party pix of it but I don’t see my name coming up within the first few search pages. A few months ago it did, so something is “better”. I’m sure the info is out there - just a bit harder to get now.
 
Skepilot said:
What is shown if you search your plane's tail number on FlightAware or similar services? Is the owner's name & city hidden there, too? (Just wondering, if FlightAware previously had that info in their database, did they subsequently remove it after the FAA request took effect, or did they keep displaying the previous info.)
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On FlightAware, it doesn't show the owner name or address when you view the flight tracker page, but if you click the "Registration" button next to your tail number, the registration name and address are still there. I, too, am curious if FlightAware will remove that information at some point, but the FAA removed my information in May and FlightAware hasn't fully caught up and removed everything yet.
 
TangoJulietTango said:
On FlightAware, it doesn't show the owner name or address when you view the flight tracker page, but if you click the "Registration" button next to your tail number, the registration name and address are still there. I, too, am curious if FlightAware will remove that information at some point, but the FAA removed my information in May and FlightAware hasn't fully caught up and removed everything yet.
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Welp, you’re absolutely correct. I didn’t dig deep enough. My full name is right there when I scroll down on a recent flight and clicking the “registration” hyperlink gives my name and address right there on FA.

Oh well…
 
Llewtrah381 said:
Welp, you’re absolutely correct. I didn’t dig deep enough. My full name is right there when I scroll down on a recent flight and clicking the “registration” hyperlink gives my name and address right there on FA.

Oh well…
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I wonder if you can contact FlightAware and ask them to honor the request. Or maybe they will eventually remove it on their own.
 
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It worked well for me. If you do a N-number lookup of my plane on the FAA site now it says, “The Registered owner has requested to keep this data private under Title 49 of the United States Code Section 44114.” The owner info is also no longer shown on FlightAware and on FlightRadar24 it shows “Private Owner.” It all took only a few weeks. That’s about as good as I can expect.
 
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