Flight Attendants and Lawmakers Challenge Google's $10 Million Spirit Data Buy

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and more than 100 members of Congress are demanding stronger privacy safeguards for former Spirit Airlines workers. The group is responding to Google's victory in a bankruptcy auction, where the tech company purchased internal Spirit business data for $10 million. The dataset includes spreadsheets and calendars that Google intends to use to refine its products and artificial intelligence models.

Spirit Airlines filed for bankruptcy, triggering the sale of this internal information. The records currently at issue include 100 million emails and 500 million workplace messages. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, stated that she is worried employees can still be identified even if their names are stripped from the files. She noted that the aviation industry has largely operated without specific legal protections for employee data in the age of AI.

Nelson argued that the data became highly valuable specifically for training AI models to replace jobs. She said her members should not bear the brunt of that technological shift. "AI is a fast-growing industry that is completely unregulated. So, as we started delving into this issue, we found that there were no protections on the books for employees," Nelson said. She added that the data is only now becoming a commodity for training models that change how work is done.

Nelson emphasized that Spirit employees did not cause the company's financial collapse. She pointed out that their personal lives are exposed in files, and security experts say it is difficult to fully de-identify the information. "And yet here they are with their entire lives splayed out in their personal files and data security experts telling us that there is no real way to de-identify that information when the sale is supposed to have a workflow connected to it," Nelson said. She explained that it is easy to trace sensitive information back to specific individuals.

Google issued a statement clarifying that it is acquiring part of an enterprise dataset to improve its AI. The company stated it is not buying personal information. Google said any personal data will be either completely excluded or de-identified by an independent third party before the transfer is complete.

In a letter to Google and Spirit, lawmakers warned that de-identified information can sometimes be re-identified. They are asking for payroll records, timecards, and certain employee communications to be removed from the sale. The group also wants limits placed on how Google can use the remaining data.

Spirit representatives declined an on-camera interview. A spokesperson said the company could not explain why Google sought the dataset and directed questions about its potential use to Google.