AFA-CWA Raises Alarm Over Personal Data Auction

Earlier this month, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) members and staff discovered, buried in the Spirit Airlines bankruptcy filing, a plan to auction off nearly 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, and data from aircraft operations, human resources, and customer-service workflows. Google won the auction with a $10 million bid, beating the next bid by artificial intelligence company Mercor.io by $2.5 million. Google representatives have stated that the data will be used to train their AI models.

The finalization of the sale has been postponed to September 9, however, thanks to a complaint filed by AFA-CWA.

In a press statement, AFA-CWA contends that despite promises to "deidentify" the records, no contract language exists pertaining to whether the contents of the records are confidential. The sale agreement with Google specifies that the deidentification process must preserve "referential integrity across the data set," leading to widespread member concerns over the possibility that "information about identifiable individuals or small identifiable groups can still be reconstructed and determined."

Click here to read the full AFA-CWA press release.

"Spirit Flight Attendants still haven't been paid their accrued vacation and sick leave, along with other compensation they are due," said AFA-CWA International President Sara Nelson. "Attempting to now sell their data is adding insult to injury. It's outrageous. Spirit failed to meet its commitment to these workers, and Flight Attendants certainly shouldn't be subject to further exploitation. Our data simply is not for sale. We did not and do not consent."

Click here to listen to AFA-CWA President Nelson in an interview on CNN.

This case could have far-reaching implications for workers in general if personal information is allowed to be sold after a worker leaves the company.

CWA stands at the forefront of the worker fight against AI abuses and threats.