Over 120 US Lawmakers Oppose Google's Purchase of Spirit Airlines Data for AI Training

More than 120 U.S. lawmakers are urging Alphabet's Google to exclude employee records from its proposed $10 million acquisition of defunct Spirit Airlines' internal data for AI model training. The dataset includes 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, and personnel files. Google won the bankruptcy auction after Spirit shut down in May. While a court-appointed consumer privacy ombudsman recommended approval on October 5 following privacy mitigations by Tonic.ai for 97 million consumers, the deal faces legal objections from multiple pilot and flight attendant unions ahead of an October 14 hearing.