DAFIF () or the ''Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File'' is a comprehensive database of up-to-date aeronautical data, including information on

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

airway The respiratory tract is the subdivision of the respiratory system involved with the process of respiration in mammals. The respiratory tract is lined with respiratory epithelium as respiratory mucosa. Air is breathed in through the nose to ...

airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

data, and other facts relevant to flying in the entire world, managed by the

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of natio ...

(NGA) of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

Withdrawal of public access

DAFIF was publicly available until October 2006 through the Internet; however, it was closed to public access because "increased numbers of foreign source providers are claiming

intellectual property rights Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

or are forewarning NGA that they intend to copyright their source". Currently, only federal and state government agencies, authorized government contractors, and Department of Defense customers are able to access the DAFIF data. At the time of the announcement, the NGA did not say who the "foreign source providers" were. I