OFFICIAL

Defence FOI 965/24/25

 

Dear Ben

 

Acknowledgement

I refer to your correspondence of 23 April 2025 seeking access to
documents held by the Department of Defence (Defence), under the Freedom
of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act). This email is to advise you that your
request has been received and allocated for Case Management.

 

The scope of your request is:

 

…documents relating to the removal, suppression, or anonymisation of
aircraft data from third-party flight tracking services such as
FlightRadar24, PlaneFinder, ADS-B Exchange, or similar platforms.
Specifically, I’m after:

1.       Policies, procedures, or internal guidelines concerning requests
to third-party services for the removal or suppression of aircraft
tracking data;

2.       Correspondence between your agency and third-party flight
tracking platforms relating to the suppression, removal, or anonymisation
of aircraft data;

3.       Internal discussions, briefings, or records outlining the
rationale or decisions around seeking to suppress aircraft data from
public tracking platforms;

4.       Statistics, reports, or summaries indicating the volume and
nature of requests made to third-party platforms over the past five years;

5.       Any agreements, memoranda of understanding, or formal
arrangements between your agency and third-party flight tracking platforms
relating to data suppression or visibility restrictions.

Disclaimer

Where staff details are captured in documents within the scope of your FOI
request, this information will be redacted; this includes private email
addresses, signatures, personnel (PMKeyS) numbers and telephone numbers,
unless you specifically request such details. Defence excludes duplicates
of documents and any documents sent to or from you. Furthermore, Defence
only considers final versions of documents.

 

Charges

Defence may impose a charge for the work involved in providing access to
the documents in accordance with the Freedom of Information (Charges)
Regulations 2019. We will notify you if your request attracts a charge.
Please note that there is no charge for documents that contain the
personal information of the applicant.

 

Timeframe

The statutory timeframe to provide you with a decision on your request
ends on 23 May 2025. This period may be extended if we need to consult
with third parties, or for other reasons. We will advise you if this
happens.

 

Please note that where the due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public
holiday, the timeframe will expire on the next working day. This is in
accordance with the FOI Guidelines issued by the Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner under section 93A of the FOI Act.

 

Disclosure Log

Documents released under the FOI Act may be published on Defence’s
disclosure log, located on our website.

 

Contact Details

We will contact you via the email address you have provided. Please advise
if you would prefer us to use an alternative means of contact.

 

I am the Case Manager for this request. Should you have any questions
relating to your request, please do not hesitate to contact me at:
[1][email address].

 

Kind regards

 

Freedom of Information Team

Media and Information Disclosure Branch

Ministerial & Executive Coordination and Communication Division

Department of Defence

 

[2]Freedom of information requests | About | Defence

 

 

IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence.
Unauthorised communication and dealing with the information in the email
may be a serious criminal offence. If you have received this email in
error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email
immediately.

 

 

References

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1. mailto:[email address]
2. https://www.defence.gov.au/about/accessi...