Several victims of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein filed a complaint on Thursday against the US government and Google after their identities were mistakenly revealed in documents posted online by the US Department of Justice. In January, the department posted over three million files related to the investigation into the disgraced financier, including his connections to prominent figures.
However, in these documents, the names of victims who were supposed to remain anonymous were published. “The Department of Justice ‘revealed the identity of approximately 100 victims of the convicted sexual predator, by publishing their private information and identifying them to the world,” the complaint filed in a San Francisco court states.
“Even after the government acknowledged that this disclosure violated the rights of the victims and removed the information, online actors like Google continue to republish them continuously, refusing the victims’ requests to remove them,” the plaintiffs lament. According to the complaint, Google still displays the victims’ personal information in search results and in content generated by AI.
Journalists from the New York Times also found dozens of nude photos of individuals in these files, with visible faces.
“The victims are now facing a new trauma. Strangers are calling them, sending them emails, jeopardizing their physical safety, and accusing them of being accomplices of Epstein when in reality, they were Epstein’s victims,” the complaint highlights.
