Spirit Airlines is auctioning off employee data in bankruptcy. Here’s what to know

The liquidation of Broward’s Spirit Airlines has moved into a new phase, with tech giants bidding millions for massive troves of internal company data to help train artificial intelligence. The sale has drawn objections from the flight attendants union and a software firm that says some of the data isn’t Spirit’s to sell.

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FULL STORY: Is bankrupt Spirit Airlines selling its data? Why Google and others want it

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Here are key takeaways:

• Google’s winning bid: Google won an Aug. 14 auction with a $10 million offer for Spirit’s productivity data, including email, chat, calendar, documents and spreadsheets. Google spokesperson Gareth Evans said any data will be “rigorously scrubbed of any personally identifiable information by a third party before receipt.”
• What’s included: Court filings list roughly 100 million emails, 80,000 email accounts, more than 17 million OneDrive items, more than 20 million SharePoint items and 500 million Teams items — plus over 1 million time cards, 148,000 tax forms and 3 million payroll records.
• Union objection: Association of Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson told the Miami Herald, “Our data simply is not for sale. We did not and do not consent,” noting flight attendants still haven’t been paid accrued vacation and sick leave.
• Privacy warning: Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at Electronic Frontier Foundation, said stripping identifiers may not be enough — employees themselves should decide, because “it’s their information and it’s their privacy risk.”
• Ownership dispute: Springshot, a San Francisco software firm that served Spirit since 2022, filed an objection Aug. 22 claiming much of the data belongs to it. CEO Doug Kreuzkamp said, “Springshot’s intellectual property is not for sale.”
• New bidder: Micro1 plans a $12.5 million bid, and founder Ali Ansari said the company will engage with the union. A hearing was scheduled for Sept. 9.

This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence and using our own originally reported, written and published content. It was reviewed and edited by our journalists.

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