Flight attendants secure safeguards in proposed Google-Spirit data sale

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA reached an agreement with Google and Spirit Airlines on safeguards that would exclude or de-identify sensitive employee records before Google buys a collection of the bankrupt airline’s data for $10 million. The protections give labor representatives a role in reviewing how worker information is handled before the data is transferred for use in AI training.

The safeguards are not final. They are part of a revised sale proposal in Spirit Aviation Holdings’ bankruptcy case, and the docket did not show an entered sale order as of November 13. An evidentiary hearing was scheduled for November 17. Nor does the proposal give every employee an individual opt-out; it instead establishes exclusions and de-identification requirements for employee data.

The union said the protections affirm the exclusion of categories such as health and medical information, drug and alcohol testing records, disciplinary records, safety-program records and identification documents. Data that remains in the proposed sale would be subject to a de-identification process under ISO/IEC 27559 and review by an independent verification agent chosen in consultation with AFA and other unions. The revised terms would prohibit Google from attempting to re-identify the data and require it to process the data in a secure environment and treat it as confidential.

The protections respond to concerns the union raised in a supplemental objection filed with the bankruptcy court. The filing said the earlier framework focused on consumer privacy while employee records could remain in mixed systems, and it argued that the proposed de-identification process lacked independent validation.

AFA said it withdrew its objections on November 9 after the employee-data provisions were added. The union said it plans to pursue worker-data protections in negotiations with other airlines.