Google has agreed to stronger privacy protections for its proposed $10 million purchase of Spirit Airlines data during the airline’s liquidation. The revised deal would keep sensitive records out and put an outside company in charge of removing identifying information from the rest. It still needs bankruptcy court approval, according to WIRED and The Wall Street Journal. Source Source
WIRED describes a proposed data pool stretching back to 1986: emails, Microsoft Teams messages, and employee travel and training information. The Journal reports that unions representing Spirit pilots and flight attendants warned personal employment files would be included to train commercial AI systems. A bankruptcy court delayed approval after those objections; the revisions resolved them. Source Source
Google had said it wouldn’t receive personal information. The Association for Flight Attendants argued the original safeguards weren’t up to that job, according to WIRED. The revised proposal spells out what would stay out: employee medical records, investigation and labor-relations documents, and information about industry-wide safety management systems. Source
WIRED reports that Spirit would have to hire Tonic AI to strip out information that could identify employees or consumers. Tonic would also be responsible for preventing the cleaned data from being linked back to specific people. Google has promised to keep it de-identified. Source
Google also has an escape hatch: it could withdraw if cleaning reduces the assets by more than 8%, according to WIRED. The report doesn’t specify how that reduction would be measured. Google did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. Source
The union isn’t stopping at Spirit. Its president, Sara Nelson, told WIRED it would demand worker-data-protection clauses in other airlines’ labor agreements. The union has also begun meeting with state-level politicians about legislation. “If you’re not willing to meet these standards for your workers, we’re going to shame you,” Nelson said. Source
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