New Aviation Bill Bans Government Use of Flight Tracking Data, Protects Pilots from Airport Fees

The Pilot and Aircraft Privacy Act of 2025 (PAPA Act) is looking to change two major things in the sky: who gets to track planes and who gets to charge pilots for landing. This bill is a big win for aviation privacy and transparency, but it also creates some serious restrictions on government access to flight data.

The ADS-B Data Lockdown

The biggest shift here involves Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data. This is the system that broadcasts a plane’s position, velocity, and other information, which is currently used by air traffic control (ATC) to keep things safe. The PAPA Act essentially throws a privacy shield around this data.

First, Section 2 makes it illegal for anyone—a person, a company, or even a government agency—to use ADS-B data to figure out who owns a plane just so they can hit them with a bill or a fee without their consent. Think of it as preventing data brokers from using flight tracking to generate unsolicited revenue. However, ATC can still use the data for its primary function: keeping planes from running into each other. If anyone wants to use the data for a new purpose, they have to get the Secretary of Transportation’s approval, which includes a public comment period.

But the real kicker is Section 3, which dramatically limits government access. It explicitly bans the FAA Administrator and any official from federal, state, local, territorial, or tribal governments from using ADS-B data. This is a massive change. If you’re a state planner or a local law enforcement agency that used this data for, say, environmental monitoring or tracking suspicious flights outside of immediate ATC operations, you’re now locked out. The bill prioritizes pilot privacy over virtually all non-air-traffic-control government uses, which could complicate things for agencies that rely on this tracking information for security or planning.

Putting the Brakes on Airport Fees

Section 4 tackles airport fees, specifically those charged to general aviation (GA)—that’s everything from flight schools and small private jets to personal planes. For airports that want to start charging new landing or takeoff fees to GA aircraft, the bill mandates a serious transparency check.

Before they can charge a dime, airports must publicly demonstrate that they’ve exhausted every other option. They have to show the public exactly what they did to cut non-airfield expenses and how they tried to generate revenue from other sources first. They also have to detail how the new fee will affect the local GA community—the flight instructors, the small businesses, and the pilots.

Crucially, any money collected from these new GA fees can only be spent on airside safety projects. This means runway repairs, lighting upgrades, or new safety equipment. They can’t use that money to fund a new administrative building or a fancy parking garage. This provision is designed to protect GA users from subsidizing non-essential airport operations, ensuring that if they are paying a fee, it’s going directly toward making the airfield safer. The FAA gets oversight power to make sure airports follow these strict rules.