Is it a simple bureaucratic paperwork snafu?  Or does the FAA’s recent flip-flop on the release of drone registry names and home addresses conflict with its parent department, the DOT, position that the information is public?  And how could that difference affect owners who have registered their drones in the FAA database?

As those of you who have followed the FAA’s evolving pronouncements on the public availability of names and home addresses from the small UAS, or drone, registry will recall, the FAA and DOT issued conflicting statements this past December when the FAA first mandated that hobbyists register drones weighing more than .55 pounds.  As I wrote at the time, a colleague pointed out to me that the FAA statements indicated that the names and home addresses of registrants, which include minors as young as 13, would only be released to law enforcement.  This contradicted a required legal notice published by the DOT in the Federal Register that stated this information would be public.  After a number of attempts to clarify whether the information was or was not public, the FAA finally admitted in a December email message that the information would be publicly retrievable by registration number.

In a press release this past Wednesday, and contrary to its earlier statement, the FAA posted data from the registry indicating the city, state and zip codes of drone owners were being made public but not the names and home addresses.  It said: “The FAA is not posting the names and street addresses of registered owners because the data is exempt from disclosure under a FOIA exemption that protects information in agency files from a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. The FAA based its determination to post only city, state and zip code on several factors, including, in part, that many of the registrants are minors and only hobbyists or recreational users.  In addition, when the FAA published its Federal Register notice pertaining to the new unmanned aircraft registration system it specifically advised the public that name and addresses would only be available by the registration number issued to the registrant. For these reasons, the FAA believes the privacy interest in such data outweighs any public interest.”.

While this was welcome news to many hobby drone owners, especially those with young children who own drones, the information directly conflicted with statements the FAA made in December and the DOT Notice on the public availability of the information which to date has not been changed.  I have tried for the last few days to get to the bottom of this; thus far unsuccessfully.  In response to my question whether the FAA would allow the release of information to the public by registration number, as it had previously stated, FAA spokesperson confirmed that it would not and pointed me to this FAQ on its website:

“Q55. If a sUAS crashes in my yard what do I do?

A. Call local law enforcement. Law enforcement personnel will contact the FAA if the crash requires FAA participation.”

The FAA to date has not been able to answer my question whether the DOT was planning to change its Federal Register notice indicating names and home addresses in the FAA registry were publicly available.  I reached out to the DOT for comment late Friday but have not received a response.  I asked drone lawyer, Loretta Alkalay, my colleague at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology why the DOT’s notice was important in determining whether the names and home addresses would remain private and unavailable to the public.  According to Ms. Alkalay, “The names and addresses of drone owners have value to many different entities, including commercial value to marketers.  It is possible that if the FAA denied release of the names and home addresses of drone owners to one of these entities, that they would sue to obtain the information in federal district court.  It is likely that a court would view the DOT’s position on the availability of the information, stated in a required legal notice, as controlling and order the release of the names and home addresses.” Stay tuned.