Lawmakers raise alarm at Google plan to acquire Spirit Airlines data for AI models

WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - More than 120 US lawmakers raised concerns on Thursday about a deal for Alphabet's Google unit to ‌acquire defunct carrier Spirit Airlines' internal data for $10 million to train artificial ‌intelligence systems.

As part of Spirit's closure and asset liquidation, Google won an auction in August for data ​from spreadsheets and calendars as well as for marketing, productivity and operations. Spirit Airlines halted operations in May.

A privacy ombudsman on Monday recommended a US bankruptcy judge approve the deal at an October 14 hearing after excluding passenger personal information from 97 ‌million Spirit customers.

The lawmakers led ⁠by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Steven Horsford said the sale would include 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages ⁠and other employee records.

The lawmakers asked the company to "exclude employee information from the transaction to the greatest extent possible."

"Innovation should not come at the expense of workers' privacy ​or the ​confidentiality of information they were required to ​provide as a condition of employment," ‌said the lawmakers. "The unprecedented scale and sophistication of modern artificial intelligence make it particularly important that privacy protections keep pace with the technology."

Google said it did not want to acquire personal information.

"We are not looking to buy any personal information from Spirit. 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," a Google spokesperson ​said.

Union leaders have expressed concern about the sale. Sara Nelson, president ‌of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, ​said, "The outcome of conditions ​on this proposed sale to Google carries tremendous implications for workers across the economy."

Spirit also received a $7.5 million bid from Mercor, an AI data company, ​for the employee data.

The ‌Federal Aviation Administration this week approved the $58.5 million sale of Spirit's slots ​at New York LaGuardia airport to JetBlue Airways.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; ​Editing by Mark Porter and Cynthia Osterman)