Lawmakers urge Google and Spirit Airlines to limit employee data in proposed AI sale

More than 120 U.S. lawmakers urged Google and Spirit Airlines on October 8 to limit employee information in a proposed $10 million sale of the airline’s internal data for artificial intelligence development. Their request puts the privacy of thousands of current and former Spirit workers at the center of a transaction that, according to the available reports, has not been shown to include a completed transfer of those records.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Steven Horsford led the lawmakers, Reuters reported. In their letter to the companies, the lawmakers asked that employee information be excluded from the transaction ‘to the greatest extent possible.’ The request is a proposed safeguard, not a finding that workers’ information has already been disclosed.

What Spirit Airlines records are at issue?

The lawmakers’ letter says publicly available court findings describe approximately 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, employee records, timecards, payroll and tax information, and employment contracts in the proposed sale. Those figures describe the potential scope cited by the lawmakers; the letter does not establish that every such record would reach Google in an identifiable form.

The concern extends beyond names and contact details. Training records, disciplinary material, medical accommodation requests and compensation information can reveal sensitive facts about an employee’s work and circumstances, the letter says. The lawmakers ask the companies to exclude training records, timecards, payroll information and Microsoft 365 content containing flight attendant information at a minimum, where those records can be separated from legitimate business records.

What safeguards are lawmakers seeking?

The letter acknowledges Google’s stated position that it will not receive personally identifiable information and that a third party will scrub the data before transfer. Bloomberg Law separately reported in September that Google told the bankruptcy court its proposed purchase excluded personally identifiable information and Spirit’s customer databases. Those are Google’s stated terms, rather than an independent finding about the contents of any eventual transfer.

The lawmakers argue that removing direct identifiers may still leave a risk of identifying workers when communications, operational records and employment histories are combined. They do not claim that anyone has been re-identified through this proposed transaction. Their request is for a de-identification process developed with meaningful input from affected employees and for continued protection of sensitive records after direct identifiers are removed.

They also seek an independent employee-confidentiality review before transfer, along with enforceable limits on the later use, disclosure, retention or further transfer of employee information. Where worker information cannot be excluded, they want a formal review of labor, disciplinary, training and communications records. The letter asks the companies to prohibit using the data to identify, profile, evaluate or draw inferences about identifiable groups of workers.

The lawmakers separately call for information from voluntary aviation safety programs to be excluded. Their letter says disclosure of such records could threaten employees’ willingness to participate in those programs. That concern is part of the lawmakers’ case for restricting the sale; the available material does not show that safety-program information has been transferred.

What remains undecided in the Google–Spirit sale?

The October 8 letter adds a request from lawmakers to an existing dispute over the proposed sale’s privacy terms. Bloomberg Law reported on September 10 that Google had pushed back on concerns raised by a bankruptcy privacy ombudsman, saying its offer covered de-identified business data and excluded customer databases. The lawmakers’ latest request focuses specifically on whether employee information should be removed or more tightly controlled even if direct identifiers are stripped out.

The available reports do not establish whether Google or Spirit has accepted the October 8 requests, what employee records would ultimately be included, or whether a court has ruled on those requests. For affected workers, the immediate question is therefore the scope and enforceability of protections before any transfer. The lawmakers have asked for exclusion where possible and independent scrutiny where it is not; the companies’ response and the final treatment of employee information remain unconfirmed.