does anyone know if recording ATC is illegal in France?
AFAIK no, you are allowed to listen, record and broadcast non en-encrypted communication unless such recordings would harm someone’s life (private or professional)
This is pure privacy stuff, just like taking videos of your friend naked & drunk and posting them on his LinkedIn next day 
I heard few pilots & controllers claiming LiveATC is illegal in France? I have yet to come across anyone who knows what he is talking about with an actual legal reference, also my understanding, EU laws puts burden on emitters to use encryption to protect their exchanges on radio, otherwise it falls naturally under public domain but I have not checked national variants of Aviation & Radio laws…
LiveATC is prohibited in UK according to Ofcom guidance (and apparently Guidance = Law in pilot forums, this is very debatable in courts )
The requirements for privacy are contained in the ITU General Radio regulations Article 18
18.4 § 2 The holder of a licence is required to preserve the secrecy of
telecommunications, as provided in the relevant provisions of the Constitution and the Convention.
Moreover, the licence shall mention, specifically or by reference, that if the station includes a
receiver, the interception of radiocommunication correspondence, other than that which the station
is authorized to receive, is forbidden, and that in cases where such correspondence is involuntarily
received, it shall not be reproduced, nor communicated to third parties, nor used for any purpose,
and even its existence shall not be disclosed.
In the case of FRTOL holders it is covered in Article 37:
37.11 § 4 Each administration shall take the necessary steps to place operators under the
obligation to preserve the secrecy of correspondence as provided for in No. 18.4.
In the UK this is made law by the Witrelress Telegraphy Act 2006. In other States there will be appropriate telecommunications legislation.
Usually before I fly to a busy airport that is new to me, I watch the local traffic on Foreflight and simultaneously listen to the associated ATC communications on Live ATC. This gives you a really good picture of how the traffic flow works at that airport and where it isn’t blocked it can be done on your phone. It’s really helpful.
There was an interpretation of the wording of the UK law posted here (can’t find it right now) which basically meant that you could not be busted for publishing an exchange between ATC and you.
The law rarely “makes sense” but this would make sense because the intention was clearly that you were to receive the transmission. One can’t argue that for 3rd party comms.
All LiveATC feeds in France are currently offline.
According to someone who appears to be a LiveATC admin on their forum, as of October 14, 2022: “We are involved in a dispute with the aviation authority in France. All feeds are offline until that dispute is resolved. We have sent a response to the authority and they seem to be refusing to respond. The basis for their claim is also questionable and doesn’t seem to have solid legal footing at all.” (from https://forums.liveatc.net/listener-forum/no-more-feeds-in-france/).
From here
Or, like in my case (a podcast), can I use audio recorded in my cockpit for my podcast?
Actually in Germany, that’s illegal. But, „wo kein Kläger, da kein Richter“, if no one complains, you apparently get away with it. But you also don’t find German airports at liveatc.net:
Why isn’t this airport or ATC facility covered?
Broadcasting ATC feeds is currently illegal for your selected airport. For more information please consult the communication laws of your country of interest.
Inkognito wrote:
Actually in Germany, that’s illegal. But, „wo kein Kläger, da kein Richter“, if no one complains, you apparently get away with it. But you also don’t find German airports at liveatc.net
Germany is indeed still very strict with this, even when people wanted to do an instruction video and use some real ATC recordings to clarify some things, they had to re-record them and to eliminate all real life callsigns in order not to run foul of DFS and the law. So I personally would never use anything recorded in Germany, not even background noise (i.e. if you film a conversation in a plane and the radio is heard in the background).
This is also the reason why there are no liveatc stations in Germany, they would immediately be taken down. Likewise, protests against FR 24 and similar services are particularly vocal in Germany. And I would think the same goes for Austria as well. There are no Live ATC broadcasts available for France, the UK, Spain, Austria, Italy and some more, so I think most of those don’t look too kindly onto these things.
Actually live atc is a pretty good indicator as to which countries allow rebroadcast and recording (or don’t care) and where not. In Europe, actually there are more white spots than others. Looking at the countries from where LiveATC broadcasts are done, there are quite a few which ban it. Currently LA is available in the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Sweden, the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Northern Makedonia and Serbia (if I have not missed any). So all the others are at the very least questionable.
I think there are other motivations, particularly in certain countries, for not broadcasting ATC comms. In the UK it is some ancient law which was never repealed. In France, it would reveal poor ATC ELP, and the dangers of mixing French and English at major airports like CDG where it obviously reduces situational awareness. In Spain and other places, poor ATC ELP. You can be sure the unions are hot on this stuff.
As I’ve posted before, when I do my videos with cockpit audio, I edit out all ATC except stuff relating to me. In the UK at least, this complies with the law. This sort of editing takes quite a bit of time but is necessary to avoid the video being totally tedious to listen to. I’ve had all kinds of weird comments on my videos but never has anybody commented on legality of anything.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Germany is indeed still very strict with thisNo, Germany does not prosecute anyone who posted their ATC recordings on YouTube or so. The DFS is even happy that their services (e.g. FIS), get promoted on YouTube. I think Germany has more a problem with live ATC recordings, like LiveATC, as this records all radio calls in general. However, if you as a pilot record things and publish a nice A to B flight with ATC on YT, nothing will happen…
