Aside from military and government sensitive flights, flight information collected by the FAA is considered public information because taxpayers pay for air traffic controllers, runways, towers, and other resources utilized by both commercial and private pilots.

In the United States and most of the world, commercial flight manifests are not public records available for general viewing. They are considered highly sensitive private data protected by privacy laws and airline security protocols. Under the Privacy Act and Department of Homeland Security regulations, passenger lists are shared only with specific government agencies like U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the TSA for security screening and law enforcement purposes. The public cannot simply request a list of who was on a specific flight. The only time manifests typically become semi-public is in the tragic event of an air disaster, where airlines eventually release a verified list of names to the media after the families of the victims have been officially notified.