How we handle your data, your location, and public aviation records.
Depending on how you interact with our website, we may collect the following types of information:
When you register for an account we collect the information necessary to identify and secure your profile. The following fields are stored in our database:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Your email address, used for login and optional notification emails. | |
| email verified time | The timestamp at which your email address was confirmed. |
| password | A one-way bcrypt hash of your password. Your plain-text password is never stored. |
| display name | The name shown on your public profile. |
| status | Your account state (e.g. active or suspended). |
| email preferences | Your chosen frequency for receiving flight summaries emails (e.g. daily, weekly, or never). |
| created at / updated / deleted | Timestamps recording when your account was created, last modified, and (if applicable) deleted. |
To use our automated tracking features — such as generating a personal sightings log of overhead flights — active members must set a physical location on their profile. We store this as a specific latitude (track_lat) and longitude (track_lon) coordinate pair in our database. This allows our background scripts to continuously query global flight APIs for aircraft passing within a 5-mile radius of your location.
Setting a location is entirely optional. You can update or remove it at any time from your Profile page. Removing your location immediately stops new overhead flights from being logged to your account.
As the system tracks flights overhead, it generates a permanent database log tied to your account. This log includes the aircraft registration, route, and the exact timestamp it was seen near your location. Additionally, if you generate personal API keys to query your own data, we log the usage metrics (request counts) associated with those keys to monitor consumption and prevent abuse.
We use strict, minimal cookies to ensure the security and basic functionality of the platform. We do not use third-party advertising or tracking cookies.
Because this site does not utilise physical receivers or hardware of its own, it relies on external services and APIs to populate the database and interface:
The core data on this website (aircraft registrations, callsigns, altitudes, speeds, operators, and routes) originates from unencrypted ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast) radio signals broadcasted publicly by aircraft in flight.
This data pertains to machines, not individuals. ADS-B is an international aviation safety standard. Aggregating, indexing, and archiving this telemetry from public APIs is standard practice for aviation hobbyists and does not constitute the tracking of personal, private information under standard privacy frameworks.
You have full control over your personal tracking data. You can update or remove your set location coordinates at any time from your Profile page. Removing your location will instantly stop our background scripts from logging new overhead flights to your account.
If you wish to request a complete export of your data, or would like your account, location data, and personal sightings logs permanently deleted from our database, please contact the site administrator at admin@aviationdb.uk.
When Turnstile runs on a page, Cloudflare processes a limited set of technical signals about your browser and connection. These include your IP address, TLS fingerprint, User-Agent header, and the site key identifying our website. Cloudflare states it cannot directly identify individuals from these Signals alone.
For the purpose of protecting our site, Cloudflare acts as a data processor on our behalf. For the purpose of improving its own service, Cloudflare acts as an independent data controller and its own Privacy Policy governs that processing.
Where Turnstile Signal data constitutes personal data under UK GDPR or EU GDPR, Cloudflare relies on legitimate interests when processing it to improve Turnstile's bot-detection capabilities. For questions about how Cloudflare processes this data, you can contact their Data Protection Officer at dpo@cloudflare.com.
For more information, see the Cloudflare Privacy Policy and the Cloudflare Turnstile product page.