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Comment by victortango | Hacker News Reader

FAA has always been rather backward on privacy. All licensed pilots' home addresses are already publicly available and are being scraped by SEO bots and displayed on the front page of google if you search for said pilot's name.

e.g.

Angelina Jolie: http://aviation-business-gazette.com/A39/B58/Pilot-Angelina-...

Harrison Ford: http://aviation-business-gazette.com/A3/B63/Pilot-Harrison-F...

I've already had a couple of scammers using my address information from here and pretending as bill collectors try to scam me. Not sure how we can get the FAA to see reason in this regard.

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Nobody is compelled to be a pilot.

Public records that aren't public aren't public records. Holding a pilot's license means having responsibility to the public, with responsibility comes accountability. Celebrities are not entitled to special privilege in the US. We don't have royalty or an aristocracy.

I agree with you about the idea of public records. At the same time, it is not clear to me why someone would need the physical address of someone with a pilot's license. Why is "where this person lives" part of "public record" once you are licensed to fly a plane?

Additionally, police officers have special privilege, but their home information is not disclosed. As are all civil servants from the post office to the IRS.

The address is where official communications are sent, e.g. the license itself or a subpoena or FAA investigators.

Which is why the FAA needs the data, not a reason to disclose it.

    Public records that aren't public aren't public records.

That's a tautology.

> Holding a pilot's license means having responsibility to the public

uh, no it doesn't.

> Celebrities are not entitled to special privilege in the US

I think the point is more here is 2 recognizable names who also have reason to hide this data.

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