Google Agrees to More Privacy Safeguards in Spirit Airlines Employee-Data Deal

Google has agreed to stronger privacy safeguards in a deal involving former Spirit Airlines employee data, according to the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which said unions withdrew their objections in bankruptcy court Monday night after securing the protections.

The union says sensitive categories of employee information will be excluded from the sale. Those include health and medical information, drug and alcohol testing records, disciplinary records, safety-program records and identification documents.

The remaining data must go through a de-identification process under the ISO 27559 standard. An independent verification agent, selected in consultation with AFA and other unions, will review that process.

AFA says Google is prohibited from trying to identify people from the de-identified records and must handle the data in a secure environment and treat it as confidential.

The safeguards follow objections filed by AFA and a coalition of other unions after the proposed sale appeared in an August court filing. Members of Congress also pressed for protections before employee data changed hands.

The union's November 10 announcement describes the privacy terms and withdrawal of objections. It does not say that the data transfer has already been completed.