Flying in Private Mode: Understanding and Improving the Privacy ICAO Address Program

Location privacy of aircraft has recently gained attention as air traffic management was modernized using novel surveillance technologies. Business aviation circles and various military and government entities voiced serious concerns about automated and ubiquitous tracking. Consequently, some flight authorities have started addressing these operational privacy issues with novel programs. A first analysis was conducted on the Privacy ICAO Address (PIA) program launched by the Federal Aviation Administration on January 1, 2020, aiming to increase privacy of general aviation in the United States. A methodology using air traffic communication data gathered from crowdsourced networks is demonstrated to identify and track aircraft enrolled in this program, showing that the privacy performance of the program does not meet its goals. Using this method, 14 exemplary aircraft enrolled in the program were identified; this number is expected to grow significantly in the future. The future efficacy of the PIA program is further predicted with a novel aircraft privacy simulator. It is shown that after 100 days, on average 69.2% of a fleet of 100 aircraft enrolled in the program can be tracked. Two improvements to the program are suggested, which would significantly decrease aircraft traceability to 44.0% after 100 days and 0.89% after 42 days, respectively.