Google agrees to addition privacy protections in Spirit Airlines data sale

Alphabet's Google has agreed to additional privacy protections in the acquisition of employee data from defunct Spirit Airlines, a union representing employees said Tuesday.

The agreement clears the way next week for approval of Google's $10 million deal to acquire Spirit data to train AI models. The union said it had won a more rigorous de-identification process than previously planned and added significant employee data will be excluded from the sale, including health and medical information.

As part of Spirit's closure and asset liquidation, Google won an auction in August for data from emails, ​spreadsheets and calendars, as well as for marketing, productivity and operations.


Spirit Airlines halted operations in May. A bankruptcy judge is now set to approve the deal next week.

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said the de-identified data will also be reviewed by an independent verification agent chosen in consultation with unions, and Google is prohibited from attempting to re-identify the data and is required to process it in a secure environment and treat it as confidential.

A group of about 120 lawmakers raised concerns last month about the data sale. Last month, a privacy ombudsman recommended a US bankruptcy judge approve the deal after excluding passenger personal information from 97 million Spirit customers.

The lawmakers, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Representative Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat, said the sale would include 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages and other employee records.

Google, which did not immediately comment Tuesday, said last month it did not want to acquire personal information.

"We are not looking to buy any personal information from Spirit. The information will either be completely excluded or will be de-identified by an independent third party before Google receives any data," Google said last month.