New Pilot Privacy Act Bans Government Use of Flight Tracking Data and Restricts Airport Fees

The newly introduced Pilot and Aircraft Privacy Act aims to put serious limits on who can use specific flight tracking data and how public airports charge fees to smaller aircraft. Think of it as a double-barreled bill: one side deals with digital privacy in the skies, and the other side deals with the cost of landing.

The "Don't Track Me, Bro" Clause

This bill takes direct aim at data generated by the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. If you’ve ever tracked a flight online, you’ve used this data. Currently, every plane is required to broadcast its location, speed, and altitude. Section 2 of the bill makes it clear that nobody—and I mean nobody—can use this ADS-B tracking data to slap a fee or charge on an aircraft owner just for flying. This is a win for private pilots and flight schools who might worry about getting billed simply because their plane was tracked over a certain area.

However, the biggest change is in Section 3, which is a massive privacy move. It creates a broad ban preventing any government official—Federal, State, local, or Tribal—from using ADS-B data in investigations. Imagine a state police investigation into a possible crime involving a private plane; under this law, they couldn't use the crucial flight path data to track the aircraft's movements. While this clearly protects pilot privacy, it could seriously tie the hands of legitimate law enforcement, safety, or security agencies that rely on this data to figure out what happened after an incident.

Airport Fees: Safety First, and Only Safety

The second major theme, covered in Section 4, is all about airport fees for general aviation (GA)—that’s everything from personal planes to flight training aircraft, excluding commercial airlines. If a public airport wants to start charging landing or takeoff fees to these GA planes, they now have to jump through several hoops. They must first show the public how they’ve tried to cut costs elsewhere and how they’ve tried to raise money from non-GA sources, like airport restaurants or parking.

Crucially, the bill mandates that any money collected from these new GA fees can only be spent on “airside safety projects.” Think runway repairs, taxiway lighting, or clear zone maintenance. They can’t use that money to renovate the administrative offices or cover general operating expenses. This is a huge win for pilots because it ensures their fees are directly invested back into the safety infrastructure they use. It also forces airports to be transparent, requiring them to estimate the total cost of the project and how long it will take to collect the necessary funds, plus assess the overall impact on the local flight community, including students and small businesses.

The Real-World Impact

If you’re a private pilot or run a flight school, this bill is mostly good news. Your flight data is protected from government prying eyes during investigations, and you get much-needed assurance that any fees you pay at a public airport are going directly toward improving safety, not just padding the airport’s general budget. The FAA will have the power to enforce these new fee rules, giving them a bigger role in overseeing airport finances.

However, for government investigators—whether they’re looking into a safety violation or a smuggling operation—the blanket ban on using ADS-B data in Section 3 is a significant loss of a crucial tracking tool. Similarly, public airports that currently rely on GA landing fees to cover things like administrative overhead or non-airside maintenance might find themselves facing a budget crunch, as that revenue stream is now strictly limited to airside safety projects.