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Google’s $10 million purchase of a vast archive of Spirit Airlines’ internal data—which includes employee emails—has run into opposition from flight attendants, who argue that the privacy protections attached to the deal do not adequately cover sensitive information. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents flight attendants nationwide, filed an objection in US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York challenging the proposed sale of the airline’s digital records to Google.
“The privacy architecture of this transaction is consumer-facing; its payload is disproportionately employee-facing,” the filing states. “Hence, the employee data is far more confidential than the customer data, yet receives far less protection than the customer data.”
Spirit Airlines has been one of America’s best-known low-cost airlines, building business off of affordable flights and charging separately for services. But its collapse has led investors and stakeholders to sell off the company’s remaining assets, which include physical and digital property.
The dispute creates a wrinkle in Google’s effort to turn the remains of the bankrupt airline into fuel for its AI ambitions. The tech giant won a bankruptcy auction for $10 million, beating AI recruiting company Mercor who offered $7.5 million. The transaction includes roughly 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams messages—along with spreadsheets, calendars, software code and other internal business records.
Google has disputed the data risk and told Fortune it is currently reviewing the objection filed by the union. The company posits there will be no personal identifying information that is of concern by the AFA-CWA included in the data obtained by Google.
“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 Fortune. “We will not receive any personal information from this dataset.”
The company also said any data that is received through the sale will be de-identified by an unnamed third party before being obtained by the tech corporation.
According to Google’s sale filing, the data protections applied to the auction include consumer data—but doesn’t specifically state employee confidentiality.
“Assets shall not include information that relates to, describes, or is reasonably capable of being associated with a consumer or is otherwise considered ‘personal data’, ‘personal information’, ‘nonpublic personal information’ or other similar term under applicable data protection laws,” the filing read.
Google says it has “no interest” in receiving employee or any individual personal identifying information.
However, the Association of Flight Attendants says Google’s safeguards aren’t enough. In a note published this week, the union said the auction filing “does not address whether the contents of the record are confidential.”
The union also wrote that they have concerns that the Sale Agreement’s “deidentification” might still preserve “referential integrity across the data set”—meaning the transmission of the data could possibly allow the confidential records to be followed.
The organization has also sent challenges to the failed airline itself, arguing the company did not adequately notify employees before shutting down.
“Spirit Flight Attendants still haven’t been paid their accrued vacation and sick leave, along with other compensation they are due,” AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson told Fortune. “Attempting to now sell their data is adding insult to injury.”
But this doesn’t mean the union is committed to shutting down the sale—or the data transfer. According to its filing, AFA-CWA “does not seek to disrupt the Debtors’ sale process, to unwind the Auction, or to prevent the estates from monetizing data assets.” Instead, it only looks to remove all identifying information that can be traced back to individuals and employees related to the airline.
“The flight attendants’ interest is in confidentiality,” the filing states.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
