A U.S. bankruptcy court has delayed a hearing on Alphabet's Google's $10 million purchase of Spirit Airlines' internal business data to September 9. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA objected to the sale, seeking protections for flight attendant data.
The objection highlights ongoing concerns about data privacy and the use of employee information for AI training, even in bankruptcy proceedings, potentially impacting future corporate data sales and AI development.
A U.S. bankruptcy court has postponed a hearing that was set to approve the sale of internal business data from the bankrupt Spirit Airlines to Alphabet's Google for $10 million. The hearing, originally scheduled for Wednesday, has been rescheduled to September 9.
The delay comes after the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), which represents Spirit's cabin crew, filed an objection to the proposed sale. The union is seeking restrictions and additional protections for flight attendant data included in the sale.
The data package includes employee emails, Microsoft Teams messages, spreadsheets, calendars, and marketing, productivity, and operations data. Google intends to utilize this information for its product development and to train its artificial intelligence models.
Spirit Airlines stated that the records would be de-identified and would not contain customer information or personally identifiable information. However, the AFA expressed concerns that the sale agreement's requirement to preserve links across datasets could potentially allow for the reconstruction of information about individuals or small groups.
Spirit Airlines is liquidating its assets as part of bankruptcy proceedings, having ceased operations in May due to significant debt and high fuel costs.