Lawmakers Push Google to Protect Spirit Airlines Ex-Employees’ Data From AI Training

More than 120 lawmakers are pushing back against Google’s $10 million acquisition of data from the now-defunct Spirit Airlines. 

Former Spirit Employees’ Data

On October 8, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Steven Horsford wrote to Spirit Airlines CEO Dave Davis and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Signed by 119 members of Congress, the letter raised concerns about Google’s plan to use Spirit’s internal data to train its AI models.

According to a press release, the lawmakers warned that Spirit’s data may include sensitive information about the defunct airline’s former employees. The records may include medical information, accommodation requests, disciplinary files and compensation details.

Lawmakers urged the companies to protect or exclude sensitive employee data before transferring it to Google.

Horsford said employees never agreed to have their data sold “to train a different company’s AI.” Also, he added, former employees should not worry about their data “being used by a company they never worked for.”

Hortsford said, “Innovation cannot come at the expense of workers’ privacy, and no employee data should move until real, enforceable safeguards are in place.”

What Spirit Airlines’ Data Includes

After Spirit Airlines halted operations in May, its data was auctioned off as part of the company’s asset liquidation.

In August, Google paid $10 million at auction for Spirit’s internal digital records. The records include 100 million employee emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, 17 million OneDrive files, 20 million SharePoint items and 516 code repositories containing 30 million lines of custom software code.

The data could help train large language models to perform a range of business tasks.

A privacy ombudsman recommended approving the sale at an October 14 hearing, provided Spirit customers’ personal data is excluded.

In response, Google said that it did not want personal information. A Google spokesperson said: “As we’ve said from the beginning of the process, we are not looking to buy any personal information from Spirit.” 

Google said an independent third party would exclude or deidentify the data. The company also said it was working with the appointed privacy ombudsman.