Washington, D.C., United States: The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) says it has secured additional privacy protections for former Spirit Airlines employees whose records were included in a proposed sale of the airline’s business data to Google. The agreement led AFA and a coalition of unions to withdraw their objections to the transaction in the airline’s bankruptcy proceedings.
Under the revised terms, 20 categories of employee information will be excluded from the sale. These include medical and disability records, drug and alcohol testing results, disciplinary files, payroll information, employee bank records, identification documents and confidential labour related investigations. Records relating to pilots and flight attendants, including FAA certificate information, crew pairing details and time cards, are also among the excluded material.
The exclusions extend to aviation safety and operational records, including flight crew fatigue reports, Aviation Safety Action Program materials, Line Operations Safety Audit data and Flight Operations Quality Assurance information. Audio and visual recordings of flight attendants, biometric data and certain pilot and flight attendant training records are also protected from inclusion in the transaction.
For the remaining data, the revised agreement requires a de-identification process under ISO 27559, an international standard for privacy enhancing data de-identification. The process will be reviewed by an independent verification agent selected in consultation with AFA and other unions. Google is also prohibited from attempting to identify individuals from the data and must process it in a secure environment while maintaining confidentiality.
AFA initially challenged the proposed sale in August, arguing that removing names and other direct identifiers would not necessarily prevent sensitive employee information from being linked to individuals through records held across different systems. The union’s objection was subsequently joined by several other labour organisations, including the Air Line Pilots Association, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the Transport Workers Union of America Local 570.
AFA said the objections were withdrawn after the additional protections were secured. The development follows the bankruptcy auction in which Google was selected as the successful bidder for the data at $10 million. The proposed transaction had drawn scrutiny because the records included extensive internal company information as well as material relating to former employees.
The latest agreement addresses the unions’ concerns over the treatment of employee information, while allowing the proposed data transaction to proceed through the bankruptcy process. AFA said it would continue pursuing broader workplace privacy protections for employees as the use of personal and employment data in artificial intelligence development expands.
