Google's bid for Spirit's data is a reminder that your work emails aren't really yours

Google has purchased a $10 million data set from Spirit Airlines, a company that ceased operations earlier this year. The purchased data includes emails, internal documents, workflows, messages and codebase, but excludes customer data and was anonymized by Google. The data was auctioned off during Spirit's bankruptcy proceedings, with Google emerging as the highest bidder.

This incident serves as a reminder that work-related digital data, such as emails and messages, is not necessarily private and can be valuable to employers, even after an organization has ceased operations. The trend of using workplace data to train AI models presents a potential privacy concern for employees, as the digital footprints they leave behind may be used in ways that they may not have anticipated.

Employment attorneys advise workers to inquire about data retention policies and be cautious about what they share on work devices, as such information can potentially outlive the individual's employment.