Union files objection to Google's purchase of Spirit Airlines data
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), has lodged an objection in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York against Google's $10 million acquisition of Spirit Airlines' internal data archive.
What the deal includes
Google won a bankruptcy auction for the defunct carrier's digital assets, beating rival AI recruiting firm Mercor. The purchase comprises roughly 100 million employee emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, as well as spreadsheets, calendars, software code and other business records.
Why the union is concerned
The privacy architecture of this transaction is consumer-facing; its payload is disproportionately employee-facing,
the filing reads. The union argues that while the sale filing mentions protections for consumer data, it does not specifically address the confidentiality of employee information, which the union says is far more sensitive.
Nelson told EuroHerald that flight attendants have not yet received accrued vacation, sick leave or other compensation, adding that selling their data "adds insult to injury."
Google's response
We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models,
a Google spokesperson said, adding that the company expects no personal identifying information to be included. The tech giant also stated that any data received will be de-identified by an unnamed third party before use.
Google's sale filing asserts that the assets will not contain information that can be linked to a consumer or classified as personal data under applicable laws, and the company claims it has "no interest" in employee personal information.
What comes next
The union's objection does not seek to halt the sale or force Google to unwind the transaction. Instead, AFA-CWA is asking the court to ensure that all identifying details that could be traced back to individual employees are removed. The court's decision will determine whether the data can be transferred under the union's proposed privacy safeguards.
Both parties await the court's ruling, which will shape how employee data from bankrupt companies can be used in AI training across the United States.