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Technically, maybe, but it also sounds a lot like a form of doxing. Where people live is not some highly classified secret, but collecting that data about people on a large scale, or posting it online, is not okay. In the same way, posting the whereabouts of someone's personal private plane[0] is not so different from posting their whereabouts when they're using a different form of transportation, and could be considered stalking.

[0] It sucks that personal private planes are even a thing, but that's a different issue.




> not so different from posting their whereabouts when they're using a different form of transportation

As someone pointed out over in Fedi-land, this would be broad enough to cover sports fixtures because you know where players are going to be (live location) and you know how they're likely going to get there (coach from local hotels if you're a UK footballer).


Presence at a specific public event with an audience specifically to see them, is not the same thing as constantly tracking and publishing someone's whereabouts.


But nobody is "constantly tracking and publishing his whereabouts".

The information published is not constant: it is published only when a plane takes off or lands.

The information is not a person's whereabouts - it is that of a vehicle

It could be argued that taking a flight in a private jet is just as much an example of what you term a public event as being at a sports event is, since private jets are required by law to broadcast their exact id and location whenever they are in flight.


> The information published is not constant: it is published only when a plane takes off or lands.

> the information is not a person's whereabouts - it is that of a vehicle

So would you be comfortable with someone publishing the location of your car every time you get in your car?

Of course the location of your car isn't public, only its ownership. But the location of your house is. So what if someone publishes every time someone enters or leaves your home? I think that would be a pretty dramatic violation of privacy.

> It could be argued that taking a flight in a private jet is just as much an example of what you term a public event as being at a sports event is, since private jets are required by law to broadcast their exact id and location whenever they are in flight.

No, because nobody is flying jets for an audience outside that jet. Except maybe at air shows and the like. It's the audience that makes it a public event, not the fact that it happens outside and is not secret.


> It could be argued that taking a flight in a private jet is just as much an example of what you term a public event as being at a sports event is, since private jets are required by law to broadcast their exact id and location whenever they are in flight.

That would be a pretty stupid argument to make. Is it one you are seriously putting forward?

Cars are required to carry license plates, that doesn't mean that using a crowdsourced license plate reader to track and publish the live location of the car isn't a massive invasion of privacy.

Please stop arguing for legitimizing surveillance because you hate some rich white guy.


None of us here are going to have private jet money, so stop dreaming as if these privacy rules on jets is ever going to apply to you, as if we're laying down how privacy should work from first principles. Billionaires live by another set of rules from the rest of us. It's about time any of those rules actually went against them.


People are arguing to normalize the destruction of privacy by saying that data being "public" means that anyone should be allowed to aggregate and publish that data.

I think there are reasons why we should allow aggregating and publishing plane location data, (though a time delay does seem reasonable.) Those reasons have nothing to do the data being "already public" and are based on the value transparency and accountability outweighing the loss of privacy.

However, when people argue that the loss of privacy doesn't exist or doesn't matter, they help undermine expectations of privacy in other areas.


The location of a private plane is also not the same as publishing an individual's whereabouts.

The solution to people knowing the location of your private plane is really simple: Don't own a private plane. Most of us are already doing it.


> Don't own a private plane.

That is of course the better solution. There's something perverse about the entire concept of a private plane.

Still, as much as I dislike his descent into madness, I do understand Musk's safety concerns here.


Well, due to the Streisand effect if there was a safety concern before it is now magnified.


> Presence at a specific public event with an audience specifically to see them

But that's not what was said - there was no exception carved out for that.


Yes and the location of a private plane does not publish someone's whereabouts. It's a freaking plane! That's about as accurate with respect to his whereabouts as Elon Musks home address (likely significantly less accurate).




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