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National Airspace System Defense Programs (NDP)

The National Airspace System (NAS) Defense Program (NDP) is a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system that provides the Department of Defense (DoD) and other National Security related groups with the necessary information to support their missions. NDP systems allows users/agencies to vet the propriety of an aircraft to occupy certain airspace, apply for permission to overfly a restricted area (waiver), alert to unauthorized incursions, detect flight plan variations, and identify suspicious/missing/stolen aircraft. NDP consists of eleven subsystems; however, this Privacy Impact Assessment will only discuss the Airspace Access Program (AAP) system and the Airspace Awareness and Detection System (AADS).


The FAA owns the AAP system and provides a method for individuals to submit requests for waivers to fly aircraft within restricted airspace. The management of the waivers is a joint-effort of FAA and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for safeguarding American airspace. The FAA manages the safety requirements for aircraft operators who apply to operate in restricted airspace, while the TSA manages the security requirements.


AADS is a website accessible to National Security Agencies that consumes publically available data from various systems and also includes Aircraft Registry and TSA data. AADS then correlates the various source data with aircraft positional track data to provide a complete situational awareness of that aircraft, its owner, its operator, and any other attributes available.  


The FAA is developing a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), in accordance with Section 208 of the E-Government Act of 2002, because the AAP system collects the aircraft operator and aircraft owner's name, organization/company, address, phone number, and email address. In addition, for individuals traveling aboard the aircraft, that individual’s name, gender, date of birth, social security number, passport number and country of issuance, city of birth, pilot certificate number and pilot certificate country. Additionally, AADS collects aircraft ownership information including name, address, and phone number. 
 

DOT is committed to ensuring that information is available in appropriate alternative formats to meet the requirements of persons who have a disability. If you require an alternative version of files provided on this page, please contact privacy@dot.gov.
Last updated: Wednesday, August 3, 2022