Taylor Swift threatens student with lawsuit over flight data tracker

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Taylor Swift (in October 2023)

Photo: Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP

Taylor Swift will be spending a lot of time on planes this week. Most recently she was at the Grammys in Los Angeles. On Sunday she will be in Las Vegas when her boyfriend Travis Kelce competes in the Super Bowl. The two cities are not too far apart. The problem: The singer gives concerts between these dates - in Tokyo.

These very public events are even broadcast by major news agencies. However, where Swift is otherwise heading with her private jet is something she obviously doesn't want to be discussed in public. That's why their lawyers are now taking action against a student in Florida.

As the Washington Post reports, Jack Sweeney received a letter from a law firm. It urges him to stop broadcasting the flight details of Swift's private jet on his various social media accounts. According to the newspaper, legal action is being expressly considered, according to the lawyers. The letter therefore dates back to December.

It explains that Sweeney's accounts would cause "direct harm" to Swift and her family and would increase "concerns for her safety." The data would therefore not be in the public interest, but would rather encourage “stalking and threats”. For Swift, according to the letter from the Venable law firm in the US capital, it was "a question of life or death."

Incident in New York probably related to writing

Megastars like Swift often have to deal with stalkers. Most recently, a man was arrested in New York for behaving suspiciously in front of the artist's house on several occasions. Swift herself has commented on the threat of stalkers several times. A spokeswoman for Swift confirmed a connection between the letter and the incidents in New York - without giving details.

Sweeney himself described the letter as scaremongering. He only spreads publicly available information from aviation authorities and other social media. “The information is all over the world,” says Sweeney. Referring to Swift, he said, "Your team believes they can control the world."

This isn't the first time Sweeney has gotten into arguments with extremely prominent people. In 2022, Elon Musk quickly blocked the Twitter account @ElonJet. This was also about the supposedly risky transfer of location data. According to Musk's own statements, he feared that the flight tracker could make too much information available to possible stalkers or other undesirable people.

yikes