Lawmakers raise alarm at Google plan to acquire Spirit Airlines data for AI models
More than 120 U.S. lawmakers raised concerns about Google’s $10 million bid for Spirit Airlines’ internal data to train AI systems. Google said personal information will be excluded or de-identified before it receives any data.
1. Lawmakers question data sale
The lawmakers, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Steven Horsford, said the sale would include 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages and other employee records. They asked Google to exclude employee information from the transaction to the greatest extent possible.
2. Google addresses privacy concerns
Google said it was not looking to buy personal information and that data would either be excluded or de-identified by an independent third party before Google receives it. A privacy ombudsman recommended that a bankruptcy judge approve the deal after passenger personal information from 97 million Spirit customers was excluded; a hearing is scheduled for October 14.
3. Other Spirit asset bids
Spirit halted operations in May and received a $7.5 million bid from AI data company Mercor for employee data. The Federal Aviation Administration approved the $58.5 million sale of Spirit’s slots at New York LaGuardia airport to JetBlue.
