Lawmakers challenge Google's planned purchase of Spirit employee data

Employee records under scrutiny

More than 120 US lawmakers raised concerns about Google’s proposed purchase of internal data from defunct Spirit Airlines for AI training, Reuters reported on October 8. Google won an auction for the data in August with a $10 million bid. Reuters said the material spans business records such as spreadsheets, calendars, marketing and operations files. Lawmakers led by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Steven Horsford said the sale could include employee emails and Microsoft Teams messages, and asked that employee information be excluded to the greatest extent possible. Those descriptions of the data volume and privacy risk come from the lawmakers’ letter, not an independent review of what Google would receive.

Approval is still pending

A privacy ombudsman recommended that a bankruptcy judge approve the deal after excluding passenger personal information, according to Reuters. Google said it is not seeking personal information and that any such data would be excluded or de-identified by an independent third party before Google receives it. The proposed transaction therefore remains a dispute about safeguards, rather than evidence that identifiable employee records have already been transferred. A court hearing was scheduled for October 14; the sale had not received the judge’s approval when Reuters published its report.