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The FAA lists Loveair LLC, a company owned by rap star and record producer Sean “Diddy” Combs, as the registered owner of this Gulfstream G550.
The FAA has implemented a new process for private aircraft owners to request that certain ownership information be kept off publicly available agency websites.
In a March 28 release, the FAA said owners and operators now can request through the Civil Aircraft Registry Electronic Services (CARES) website that the agency withhold information such as their names and addresses from public dissemination.
The FAA said it will seek public comments to determine if removing information will affect service providers’ ability to perform necessary functions such as maintenance, safety checks, and regulatory compliance. It is also “evaluating whether to default to withholding the personally identifiable information of private aircraft owners and operators from the public aircraft registry and providing a means for owners and operators to download their data when needed.”
The new process responds to a provision of FAA reauthorization legislation signed into law in May 2024. Section 803 of the bill, titled Data Privacy, calls on the FAA administrator to “establish and update as necessary a process by which, upon request of a private aircraft owner or operator, the administrator withholds the registration number and other similar identifiable data or information, except for physical markings required by law ... from any broad dissemination or display.”
A following provision—Section 804—calls on the administrator within 180 days of the bill’s enactment “to initiate a review of the process for reserving aircraft registration numbers to ensure that such process offers an equal opportunity for members of the general public to obtain specific aircraft registration numbers.”
The “Request to Withhold Aircraft Ownership” process using the CARES platform complements privacy protections the FAA already offers owners and operators.
Under the Privacy ICAO Address program, operators can request a temporary International Civil Aviation Organization address for broadcast by their aircraft’s ADS-B transponder to foil identification by persons tracking flights using their own ADS-B receivers. The temporary address is not attached to the Civil Aviation Registry.
The Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed program prevents tracking sites from displaying registration numbers, call signs or flight numbers of participating aircraft using FAA-sourced data.
Existing protections, however, famously failed to prevent college student Jack Sweeney from tracking billionaire Elon Musk’s Gulfstream G650 in 2021 using algorithmic tracking bots, or software, over the internet. Social media platforms later suspended Sweeney’s celebrity flight-tracking accounts.
Responding to the FAA’s latest announcement, NBAA said publicly available aircraft information containing personal information “has enabled flight-stalking by anyone, anywhere in the world, with any motive.” The association welcomed the new process as a further protection for business aviation.
“Security is a huge issue for companies large and small, all across the country, which is one of the reasons Congress passed bipartisan legislation requiring the FAA to strengthen the protections for aircraft ownership information and flight data,” said NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen. “We are pleased with the steps the FAA has taken to protect entrepreneurs and businesses.”
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