Google Wanted Spirit Airlines Data. Flight Attendants Found a Way to Opt Out

The agreement comes as part of Spirit Airlines' liquidation process, which suddenly ceased operations earlier this year. In August, the airline announced it would sell decades' worth of data to Google for $10 million, claiming Google would not receive personal information. However, the union representing 55,000 flight attendants argued that proposed safeguards wouldn't prevent serious privacy violations.

Data Protection Measures

The revised deal requires Spirit to hire Tonic AI, a third-party data de-identification company, to exclude information that could be associated with individual consumers or employees. Tonic will ensure that de-identified data cannot be relinked to specific people, and Google has promised to maintain the data in this form.

Many sensitive records will be excluded from the sale, including employee medical records, documents related to investigations and labor relations, and information about safety management systems. A trade organization representing airlines warned that including such information could make employees less willing to report safety issues.

Industry Impact

The deal includes an opt-out clause allowing Google to back out if data cleaning reduces the assets by more than 8 percent. Association for Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson noted that this issue affects all workers, not just those training AI replacements.

Nelson announced the union will demand other airlines include worker-data-protection clauses in labor agreements and is meeting with state-level politicians to craft legislation that would write worker data protections into law. A judge still needs to approve the agreement next week.