• by Laurie Sullivan , 5 hours ago

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Steven Horsford sent a joint Congressional letter on Thursday to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Spirit CEO Dave Davis in preparation for next week's court hearing about the sale of the data from the defunct airline.

The letter, which the flight attendants' association -- the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) --  posted online, was signed by 121 U.S. Senators and Representatives expressing their “serious concern” about the proposed $10 million sale of Spirit Airlines’ internal data to Google to train its artificial intelligence (AI) systems. 

In August, Google said it wanted the data to train its AI systems for predictive ad targeting and dynamic pricing on that data.

Predictive analytics and behavioral economics have created a feedback loop for advertisers that can better predict future decisions and influence consumers before they make a purchase.

The court hearing, scheduled for Oct. 14, will determine the outcome for the 100 million emails, 500 million chat messages, documents, and operational history.

Google’s intention was announced in August, along with the company’s willingness to spend about $10 million to purchase the data, which excludes personal passenger and credit card information.

Google hopes to train its AI systems for predictive ad targeting and dynamic pricing on that data.

“This sale presents uncharted territory,” the members of Congress wrote in the letter.

It also described highly sensitive data including employee records, timecard records, payroll and tax information and employment contracts.

“This information was created and provided in the context of an employment relationship and may contain highly sensitive information about individual workers.,” according to the letter. “Consumers have more privacy protections than workers, yet Spirit has collected far more private information about its employees than about its customers.”

Lawmakers insist that the data exclude employee information wherever possible.

For remaining content, the group calls for input from workers to form an independent confidentiality review, and enforceable limits on how the data can be used or shared.

The letter also calls on Google to form “a meaningful de-identification protocol agreed upon by the affected workers,” and “independent employee confidentiality review and meaningful limits on downstream use.”

Members of Congress in the letter said they will use Google and Spirit to address data-privacy concerns of bankrupt companies in the event this ever arises again. The letter states there should be laws in place that ensure sensitive information cannot identify workers to be profiled in the future.