We're not going to encourage you to break the law, but we totally understand why you might want to do soat least where it concerns the drone you just bought. The Federal Aviation Administration is going to launch its drone registration system this Monday, which means that everyone who owns or purchases a drone will have to cough up their name, mailing address, and $5 or face undisclosed penalties if caught flying an unregistered drone.

The problem? According to the FAA, a person's name and address are going to be public within its database. You won't be able to search for John Smith and find out where he lives (well, where all the John Smiths live), but you will be able to look up a person if you happen to know the registration number of a particular drone.

So, while that might be helpful if you need to know who just flew a drone into your backyard, the potential for abuse of this system is certainly highat least, it feels high to us. The entire situation wasn't helped by the confusing language the FAA has been using when describing this national drone registry. Initially, the FAA made it sound as if everything in the database would be fairly private:

"The FAA will be able to see the data that you enter. The FAA is using a contractor to maintain the website and database, and that contractor also will be able to see the data that you enter. Like the FAA, the contractor is required to comply with strict legal requirements to protect the confidentiality of the personal data you provide. Under certain circumstances, law enforcement officers might also be able to see the data," read the FAA's FAQ.

However, a separate filing from the U.S. Department of Transportation makes the registration system sound a bit less private.

"All records maintained by the FAA in connection with aircraft registered are included in the Aircraft Registry and made available to the public, except email address and credit card information submitted under part 48," reads a filing from the DOT.

Forbes contributor John Goglia queried the DOT to get a sense of what, exactly, is happen with the registry. After multiple attempts to get some kind of clarification, an FAA spokesperson wrote back with the following:

"Until the drone registry system is modified, the FAA will not release names and address. When the drone registry system is modified to permit public searches of registration numbers, names and addresses will be revealed through those searches."

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