“Flightplans allow to track one’s movements, that’s personal information”
File FPL in the air, I was told in the US you need to have wide aircraft marks for visual inspection of your aircraft reg ID 
I don’t think FPL contains much personal infotmation as many other stuff we send on internet (from your CAT online checkin to you music festival ticket account and live google map position data) and also I don’t think they are worth anything when they are not active…
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.
lionel wrote:
Flightplans allow to track one’s movements, that’s personal information.
Only as long as you don’t file a FP …
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
