A proposed agreement between Google and the union representing Spirit Airlines flight attendants would require an independent company to strip personal information from decades of workplace data before Google can acquire it. The $10 million sale remains part of Spirit’s liquidation and still needs judicial approval.
The archive includes 1.99 billion emails, 664 million Microsoft Teams messages and employee travel and training records dating to 1986. Tonic AI would remove information that could identify consumers or employees and try to prevent de-identified material from being linked back to individuals. Google has promised to keep the resulting data in that form.
Medical records, employee investigations, labor-relations documents and aviation safety-management information would be excluded. The Association for Flight Attendants argued that including safety reports could discourage workers from using voluntary programs that help identify hazards. Google may abandon the purchase if cleaning removes more than 8% of the assets.
The union plans to seek similar clauses in other airline labor agreements and is discussing worker-data legislation with state officials. The arrangement does not ban training on workplace records, and de-identification has practical limits. It does, however, create a review and opt-out structure for employee information that is often missing from consumer-focused privacy law.