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Flight Plans and GDPR

It’s been mentioned previously (and I believe to be true) that in certain countries, perhaps most, the police and customs have access to flight plans so that they can match these to flights that filed customs notifications for international flights and identify flights that might not have filed and might be trying to avoid detection.

I got to wondering recently, is that still legal for them to do after the introduction of GDPR?

After all, that’s not the purpose we submitted our flight plan for, and we didn’t consent to it being used in that way.

I’m not sure if the data on a flight plan would count as being personal data but it certainly identifies the commander and details of their travels.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

dublinpilot wrote:

After all, that’s not the purpose we submitted our flight plan for, and we didn’t consent to it being used in that way

Got a feeling there is a catch 22 in there? There is no consent in anything flight plan IMO. Customs don’t have access to the FP, unless you send it to them. Crossing the border (with customs), you have to send it to them.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

I would think the Govt has an exemption to GDPR, and more or less everything else

Lots of previous privacy-related threads – examples

It is worse with the GAR (and its “gendec” variations) form. Anyone seeing these, over time, can work out a great deal about your private life, including any affairs you may be having

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Art 2.2.(d) of GDPR:
This Regulation does not apply to the processing of personal data:

by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public security

Germany

dublinpilot wrote:

is that still legal for them to do after the introduction of GDPR?

Yes. Government exempted themselves out of all parts of GDPR that they find inconvenient. Law enforcement and national security get exemptions.

Andreas IOM

Interesting. The government here has gotten into trouble with the data protection commissioner for making a specific id card mandatory and using the data for more than was necessary.

Interesting that there are exemptions.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Peter wrote:

I would think the Govt has an exemption to GDPR, and more or less everything else

There are some exemption, but generally GDPR applies to governments as well.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

FWIIW, after AIS casually accessed a week-old flightplan while I was on the phone with them, I asked the Dutch ANSP about their treatment of flightplans, they said their evaluation is that it doesn’t contain any personal information. I disagree. Flightplans allow to track one’s movements, that’s personal information.

ELLX

lionel wrote:

Flightplans allow to track one’s movements, that’s personal information.

Only as long as you don’t file a FP …

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

I think you guys need to embark on a campaign to deregulate flying so one can fly internationally with no transponder, no flight plans, etc

And while you are doing this, see if you can make it work for homebuilts too, and IFR, so I can buy a Lancair IVP

And while you have the momentum, don’t waste it. Get the NSA, the GCHQ and their equivalents which exist in every country in the world, shut down as well because they are all monitoring and storing everything. All the NATS radar data is stored for ever in some GCHQ warehouse.

And shut down google. That’s your biggest enemy.

A Mode S TXP radiates your reg and that allows anybody with a €10 USB TV stick to track you, and putting the reg into google tells them where you are prob99 based, where you prob99 fly, where you prob99 do not fly, often who you fly with (the spotters like long lenses), etc. And that is just for totally casual digging around, e.g. to see if somebody trying to sell you a plane is lying about where or how often they have flown it. Somebody willing to do some legwork can follow you all over the place.

In comparison, flight plans are not accessible to the public.

For sure one can fly a plane without being identified, but one has to do it OCAS. Lots of people fly like that but they mostly just do circles around their local area. If you want to cross borders, that usually means having to fly below the radar or with a “misconfigured” Mode S ID or by telling ATC the wrong reg when airborne (i.e. fly illegally).

I think this is a lost cause.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
11 Posts
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