US lawmakers raise concerns over Google purchase of Spirit employee data

More than 120 US members of Congress expressed concerns about the planned $10 million sale of internal employee data from the defunct Spirit Airlines to Google’s parent company Alphabet.

The deal would cover 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages and additional employee records, while personal information of 97 million Spirit customers is excluded; Google said it will not acquire personal data and that any retained information will be either fully excluded or anonymized by an independent third party, and the data‑privacy ombudsman had earlier advised a US bankruptcy judge to approve the sale at a hearing on 14 October, after which Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants‑CWA, warned of possible consequences for workers; Spirit Airlines ceased operations in May.