Spirit Airlines' planned $10 million data sale to Google has hit another snag after lawmakers raised significant concerns this week.
A bankruptcy court hearing on the defunct ultra-low-cost carrier's sale of company data to the tech giant has been delayed from October 14 to November 6.
This comes after more than 120 lawmakers expressed concerns over the sale of internal data for the purpose of training artificial intelligence systems. Members of Congress argued it could violate "the privacy and confidentiality of thousands of current and former Spirit employees," according to The Hill.
Officials call the potential deal "uncharted territory" that would involve "approximately 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, employee records, timecard records, payroll and tax information, and employment contracts."
Consumer data such as ticket sales, passenger name records, in-flight purchases and refund system data has been excluded from the sale, but text, email and phone communications are included, but notably cleaned of personally identifiable information.
While Google claims that any data received will be de-identified by an independent third party, the group's letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Spirit CEO Dave Davis said they "are concerned that conventional de-identification safeguards may not be sufficient to protect employee privacy in the context of modern artificial intelligence."
Lawmakers cited the National Institute of Standards and Technology report showing that de-identified data could be re-identified with the use of AI in some cases.
"As we’ve said from the beginning of the process, we are not looking to buy any personal information from Spirit," a Google spokesperson told The Hill. "The information will either be completely excluded or will be de-identified by an independent third party before Google receives any data. We’re already working constructively with the appointed privacy ombudsman."
The group has asked both Google and Spirit to take as many as six steps before moving forward, including excluding employee information whenever possible, getting employee approval for a de-identification protocol and protecting sensitive employee information when it is de-identified.
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