Is Google’s Real Time Flight Data Going to Help the Terrorist?

It is good to think at times that information is at your fingertips. On the other hand, if you think it in a negative fashion, it is truly scary. Google made the following announcement that it is going to provide the flight data in real time. The flight tracking layer provides information more than just looking at a plane on the globe. You can also click on any flight to get detailed info, and you can even download the entire flight path.

Thanks to our friends at Flightwise.com, we’ve published a new, dynamically updating KML file of commercial flights over the U.S. Turn on the layer to see the current location and altitude of thousands of flights, in near real-time. The KML file is created from data available on the Flightwise website, which they collect from the FAA every few minutes.

David Gewirtz of ZDnet blog thinks that “almost real time data” means: “Basically, everything is delayed about 20 minutes. If it looks like Flight 222 is over the Mississippi right now, it actually passed over the Mississippi 20 minutes ago.” But, since the data isn’t real-time, it’s probably been bypassed of any potential threat. However, the tool also provides flight path information.