A group of US lawmakers expressed concern over Google's plan to acquire the internal data of bankrupt Spirit Airlines for $10 million and use it for AI. They are calling for employee data to be excluded from the transaction as far as possible.
A group of more than 120 US lawmakers has expressed concern over Google's plan to acquire the internal data of bankrupt Spirit Airlines. The data to be sold could include 100 million emails, 500 million Teams messages and other employee records, prompting calls for employee information to be excluded.
Google has explained that it does not intend to acquire personal information. Google also reportedly acquired spreadsheets and calendar data at auction as part of the liquidation of Spirit's assets, and experts recommended approving the transaction at a hearing on the condition that the personal information of Spirit's 97 million customers be excluded.
Spirit suspended operations in May, and the current case concerns the handling of data as proceedings continue in federal bankruptcy court. The hearing is scheduled for 14 October.