The FAA is working on ways for private aviators to protect their flight data from being made public, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal. NBAA and GAMA have been pressing the FAA, the Journal reported, to ensure that as new air traffic control systems such as ADS-B are developed, they will include a feature that enables private operators to fly without their flight operations being made public in real-time. The operators have expressed concerns about security, privacy and business competition. The tentative solution, according to the Journal, is for the system to change its aircraft-specific identifying codes, perhaps daily or weekly, to prevent the public from identifying specific ADS-B transmissions as belonging to particular aircraft.
For the longer term, government and industry experts are studying ways to encrypt the data, to shield the locations and registration numbers of business or private aircraft, the Journal said. The business-aviation community has been expressing concern about this issue for years. In May, NBAA President Ed Bolen wrote in an op-ed: “ADS-B transmits an unencrypted, real-time signal that includes the aircraft’s Mode S transponder code, its call sign, aircraft type, position and airspeed, as determined by the aircraft’s own GPS-based avionics. Anyone with the right equipment can capture that real-time data and potentially use it for nefarious purposes.” Bolen said NBAA is concerned that its members’ flights could be tracked by competitors trying to deduce their next business moves.
