I’m not paranoid but I put tape over the camera and mic of my company iPad. I know for a fact they’ve been monitoring me.

They’re monitoring you too!

I always thought they would be more interested in what I was looking at, not how I looked/sounded while doing it....

Lawyers have created this. I simply can't blame anyone for refusing to even push wheel chairs anymore. I heard of a pilot land in hot water because he was pushing a wheel chair and the person was wobbly and fell... somehow the pilot got blamed, and it was pointed out that pushing wheel chairs is not in the pilot's job description so you're assuming all responsibility for what happens.

There is a reason why some doctors are refusing to treat attorneys and their families. Can't say that I blame them. It's sad.

does he also wear a bullet proof vest everywhere? Sounds like someone I know

I have flown with a couple people like you mention, but more I’m surprised about how many believe in crazy political conspiracy theories. For a well educated group it’s entertaining to hear some of the stuff these guys come up with. Had one guy tell me he never pays federal income tax from his rental properties because he never agreed to do so in the first place and it’s unconstitutional for the government to make him.

Yes, I've seen that too... people who had a history of carpet dances for operational issues tended to be uptight in the cockpit. PTSD or maybe they were just on double-secret probation.

But that's a different animal than people who are afraid of getting in trouble for HR stuff.

My theory on that is while most pilots are smart and educated, many of them don't have the broad context of experience with how organizations and society work because they've always operated professionally either alone or with one other pilot. They have less organizational context than a ramper, who at least interacts with boss on a regular basis. Also depends on what they do in their spare time and who they do it with.

Being smart, they tend to go looking for info and context, and find it in the blogosphere...

People who've had white-collar/professional jobs, including mil, have an innate understanding of how organizations (including governments) work and are less prone to off the wall ideas. When considering the motives and actions of an organization, never attribute to malice what can be explained by lethargy, incompetence, or greed in that order.

Company probably not.
1. Probably illegal (not just compay-gets-a-fine, but prison-time illegal).
2. They couldn't use any info acquired without your consent against you anyway.

That said you cannot *absolutely* rule at that some manager somewhere might be tempted to access audio just for some insight into what someone might be thinking. If I was running a high-level union meeting, I'd ban all company devices from the room... just to remove the temptation.


Random hackers are a more plausible threat. I do keep my cameras covered when I'm not using them. Probably worried more about unauthorized images of my kids than images of me.

Hacking an iGadget or otherwise is nearly impossible and only more possible (though still quite tough) if it has been jail broken by yourself. I can virtually guarantee you no mid-level manager or otherwise at an airline has the ability to get into your company issued gadget and spy on you.

Some devices are more secure than others. But I'm aware of one scheme on a company-owned ipad where the device simply recorded video data and saved it. This was then uploaded during a periodic data-synch process which was a legit component of the business tools installed on the device (this was not an airline).