What does it mean to be a public figure? From celebrities to politicians, the digital age’s questions about privacy, public personas, and audience entitlement have been writ large across hundreds of lives. From Peter Thiel to Kim Kardashian, Hulk Hogan to Leslie Jones, we see how public figures embrace and shun celebrity playing out in real time.

Of course, how much privacy we allow celebrities varies. Kim Kardashian’s sexual openness has left her in the unenviable position of being blamed for her own armed robbery, while Peter Thiel has faced little to no rebuke for his political hypocrisies and petty vendettas. And while we’re all eager to tear into tabloid fodder about who supposedly slept with which major movie star, we also don’t have the same sense of entitlement with pop culture celebrities the way we do with politicians. What we would like to know about pop stars we demand to know about public figures: how much money do they make? What are their hobbies? What are their tastes like afterhours, or in the boudoir?

This scrutiny is warranted: if we bestow people with power, we want to be sure they won’t abuse it, or at least that said abuse doesn’t harm us. And when scrutiny reveals hypocrisy, such as politically homophobic GOP congressmen having gay sex, the extra vigilance is easily justified, a meaningful way of holding our politicians accountable. Hillary Clinton’s emails have already been a huge point of contention for voters across the political spectrum, with even some of her supporters showing unease.

Another public figure in hot water over deleted digital information is Iowa State University President Steven Leath, whose flight records were scrubbed from the internet just this week. The controversy began in September, when Leath damaged a small plane owned by ISU while attempting a landing. Leath, a certified pilot, blamed weather conditions for the damage to the plane, but flight experts have confirmed to AP the damage appears solely due to pilot error. More concerning is how the damage was repaired. No insurance claim was filed, with ISU paying $12,000 out of pocket to repair the damage. The plane was housed in Bloomington, Illionois, for three to four weeks, at an unreleased cost also paid by the university. And the cost for Leath and his wife to fly back from Bloomington was another $2,200, paid for from a fund of donations controlled solely by Leath.

Now, Iowa State University has said that Leath was on official university business during this trip, meeting with a donor, in addition to taking some personal time. Taking this at face value, the sheer wastefulness of paying $12,000 over filing an insurance claim, on the basis of “we had the money” is shameful. But this isn’t the first time Leath has used the school plane to mix work and play. Leath has traveled to North Carolina using the school plane three times before, every time at a fraction of the cost of renting a similar plane commercially. It seems self-evident Leath is using his position to save money in his pocket at the expense of taxpayer money and Iowa State alumni donations. The deletion of his flight records from ISU websites flies directly in the face of Leath’s public commitment to “transparency” regarding his use of the school’s plane. If Leath was really committed to transparency, these records, already the subject of an AP report, would still be available for public consumption.