Google won an auction on Friday to obtain data from the now-defunct Spirit Airlines for $10 million.
“We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models,” a Google spokesperson told JS. “We will not receive any personal information from this dataset.”
According to court documents, the data does not include customer information, but it does include, in part, employee data and records, payroll records, employee tax forms, and roughly 100 million emails, 17 million OneDrive items, 20.6 million SharePoint items, and 500 million Teams items.
The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA has filed an objection to the sale, asking the court to stop it from going through. Alternatively, if the sale goes through, the union asks that flight attendants receive “at a minimum the same protections extended to consumers.”
“Spirit’s disclosure indicates that these records will be ‘deidentified,’ which addresses whether a record can be traced to a named individual. However, it does not address whether the contents of the record are confidential,” the group said in a press release.
“With a group the size of the Spirit Flight Attendant population, our union has significant concerns that it may be possible that information about identifiable individuals or small identifiable groups can still be reconstructed and determined,” AFA added.
In a statement to JS, a spokesperson for Spirit Airlines said a third party will “deidentify the data and certify that the data sold at auction is compliant with applicable privacy laws and regulations.”
“Spirit takes all data privacy concerns seriously and will continue to work with the appropriate parties to resolve any outstanding issues,” the spokesperson continued.
Spirit abruptly shut down in May after 34 years in business, providing budget travel, and immediately canceled all scheduled flights. It had 17,000 employees at the time of closure.
The next court hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9.
