Michael Huber writes:
Peter wrote:

You would however get into trouble if you recorded ATC and then openly
published the recording, e.g. on a website. I don't know why there is
this sensitivity because UK ATC are generally highly professional;

Maybe a parallel to Germany might help. In Germany, tapping into any
communication not intended by the sender to be heard/read/whatever by
oneself is illegal (regardless of whether there are measures taken to
prevent this) under privacy laws. There are some exceptions, but that's the
general rule. ATC communication is only intended for a limited circle of
recipients. Plane spotters are not the intended recipients, thus, they may
not listen.

It has nothing to do with perceived professionality of the ATC people, and
everything with protecting the privacy of ATC and pilots.

The law in the U.S. is/was that it's illegal to intercept
/and reveal/ the content of a transmission. The courts
have repeatedly ruled that intercepting (listening to) a
transmission is not illegal.

It would seem that the German position is rather extreme
in that the people on a given aviation frequency have no
expectation of privacy (and, for the most part, couldn't
care less). Taken to an extreme, it would seem that the
German equivalent of the FAA can't record ATC transmissions
and use them for quality control, training, or violation
proceedings since uninvolved third parties will have been
recorded.