Google has acquired a vast trove of data from former Spirit Airlines employees, prompting concerns among flight attendants about potential breaches of confidentiality.

The data, which doesn’t include personal information or customer records, covers the airline’s entire employment and workplace history. A court-appointed ombudsman will oversee the removal of any personally identifiable information (PII) before transfer to Google, ensuring that no individual can be identified. However, former flight attendants fear that confidential work data, such as emails and chat logs, might not be fully scrubbed.

The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), which represents Spirit workers, argues that Google’s privacy commitments only apply to customer data, leaving a significant loophole for worker confidentiality. This means that former employees could potentially be linked back to the de-identified data if it were ever re-identified by Google or a third party.

“The privacy architecture of this transaction is consumer-facing; its payload is disproportionately employee-facing,” stated AFA in their court filing, highlighting the asymmetry between the protection given to customer data and that for worker data. These fears are not unfounded, especially considering Google’s long history with sensitive information breaches.

For now, former Spirit employees are rallying against a deal they see as potentially compromising their privacy, raising questions about who truly owns our data in an increasingly digital world.