Lawmakers warn Google could expose Spirit Airlines data in $10 million AI training deal
More than 100 members of Congress on Thursday sent a letter to the CEOs of Google and Spirit Airlines imploring them to halt a deal which would give the tech giant internal Spirit data in exchange for a $10 million payment to the failed carrier.
Google wants the data to train AI models and has said it will be deidentified. The proposed sale would include about 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, employment contracts, employee and timecard records and payroll and tax information, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) said in a press release.
“While we understand that Google has stated that it will not receive personally identifiable information and that the data will undergo third-party scrubbing before its transfer, we are concerned that conventional de-identification safeguards may not be sufficient to protect employee privacy in the context of modern artificial intelligence,” the letter from 114 federal lawmakers said.
