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 published online by the US Department of Justice. In January, the department uploaded over three million files related to the investigation of the disgraced financier, including his connections to prominent figures.
However, in these documents, names of victims who were supposed to remain anonymous were published. The Department of Justice “unveiled the identities of about 100 victims of the convicted sexual predator, by releasing their private information and identifying them to the world,” stated the complaint filed in a San Francisco court.
“Even after the government acknowledged that this disclosure violated the rights of the victims and removed the information, online entities like Google continue to republish them, refusing the victims’ requests to delete them,” the plaintiffs lament. According to the complaint, Google still displays the personal information of the victims 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, putting their physical safety at risk, and accusing them of being accomplices of Epstein when in reality, they were Epstein’s victims,” the complaint emphasizes.
