Taylor Swift threatens to sue student who tracks her private jet

In the wake of legal threats from Taylor Swift’s legal team, a University of Central Florida student has drawn national attention over his tracking and publicizing of celebrity jet flights.

Jack Sweeney, who manages social media accounts detailing the travels and environmental footprints of celebrities’ private jets, has been accused of causing “direct and irreparable harm” to Swift and her family.

In response to Mr. Sweeney’s activities, Katie Wright Morrone, an attorney representing Ms. Swift, issued a cease-and-desist notice in December, saying the pop star would “have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies” if he did not stop his “stalking and harassing behavior,” The Washington Post reported.

“While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our client,” Ms. Morrone wrote, adding there is “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control.”

Mr. Sweeney’s endeavors involve logging the movements of aircraft owned by an array of wealthy and notable individuals, using public data supplied by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and aircraft tracking hobbyists. His work recently ignited controversy surrounding the right to free speech after Mr. Sweeney was banned from X, a social media platform owned by Elon Musk, over concerns of revealing personal location details.

Mr. Sweeney, who claims that his postings merely give a rough idea of Ms. Swift’s possible whereabouts akin to public event schedules, regards the grievance as an attempt to stifle the sharing of publicly accessible data. He points out the timing of the legal correspondence coincides with criticism over the singer’s carbon footprint linked to her jet travel. 

A 2022 report named Taylor Swift as the “biggest celebrity CO2 polluter” based on analysis from the data that Mr. Sweeney’s accounts provided. However, Ms. Swift’s team countered this claim, stating that the figures were misleading due to the jet being loaned to others and that the singer had invested in carbon offsets exceeding the impact of her travels.

Despite legal threats, the tracking of aircrafts via transponder signals remains a popular pastime for aviation enthusiasts who use items like ADS-B receivers. While Ms. Swift’s jet is seemingly hidden from consumer flight-tracking websites through an FAA hide request, independent sites fed by hobbyists, such as ADS-B Exchange, are not affected by such restrictions.