New york: The U.S. Department of Justice is deleting Epstein files after victim data was leaked. The U.S. Department of Justice is scrambling to remove a massive amount of documents and files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the former financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison, from its website after discovering that personal information of victims in his case had been leaked, further traumatizing these victims.

According to Thai News Agency, these documents were released under the Epstein Transparency Act, which mandates the U.S. Department of Justice to disclose over 3.5 million pages of documents. However, problems arose from censorship errors, resulting in the incomplete disclosure of personal information-including names, email addresses, financial details, and banking information-of nearly 100 victims. Furthermore, reports indicate that highly sensitive and private photographs of the victims were released, allowing for the identification of individuals even after censorship.

The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed that it immediately removed all documents in question from the website on Tuesday and acknowledged the error, but stated that the erroneous information accounted for only 0.1% of all documents and that they were working to correct it and re-upload it within 24-36 hours. Meanwhile, lawyers for the victims condemned the incident as the most serious violation of privacy in U.S. history. Several victims stated that they felt their privacy was repeatedly violated, with some receiving death threats after their personal information was leaked.

A federal court in New York is currently considering whether to temporarily shut down the website that published these documents until the remaining 5 million+ pages can be thoroughly examined to prevent a recurrence of the error.