- The FAA has changed rules that allow the tracking of private jets. The agency also says it’s considering making ownership information private by default at some point in the future. Elon Musk and Taylor Swift have called trackers that use the formerly publicly available data a threat.
The days of being able to monitor where private planes owned by celebrities are coming to an end.
A new rule change at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will make it easier for owners of those jets to hide their registration information, making it more challenging for tracking sites like the ones created by a college student who caught the wrath of Elon Musk and Taylor Swift.
Private aircraft owners can now submit an electronic request that the FAA withhold their aircraft registration information from public view, meaning it will not be publicly accessible through FAA services. The agency also said it’s evaluating whether to make that information private by default.
This almost certainly puts the final nail in the coffin of popular flight-tracking services like those created by Jack Sweeney. A little more than two years ago, Musk threatened legal action against the founder of the jet-tracking app and permanently suspended the @ElonJet account on Twitter (now X), which tracked the flights of Musk’s private jet, as well as Sweeney’s personal account.
Months later, Taylor Swift’s lawyers filed a cease-and-desist letter to Sweeney, attempting to ban another tracker he created that followed the movements of the pop star, saying, “While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our client.”
The rule changes followed the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. That Biden-era legislation gave the FAA two years to develop rules that would let private-jet owners keep their personal information hidden.