NEW YORK (AP) — Photos of naked people. Names and faces of victims of sexual abuse. Bank account and Social Security numbers in plain view.

All of this can be seen among the mountain of documents that the US Department of Justice released on Friday as part of its efforts to comply with a law that requires the agency to release its files from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

That law was intended to preserve important privacy protections for Epstein's victims. Their names were supposed to be blacked out on the documents. Photos of their faces and bodies were supposed to be censored.

The errors, however, have been abundant. The Associated Press and other news organizations conducted a review that found countless examples of sloppy, inconsistent or non-existent censorship that exposed private information.

The photograph of a girl who was hired to give Epstein sexualized massages in Florida appeared in one of the graphs of alleged victims. Police reports with the names of several of his victims -- including some who have never come forward publicly -- were published without any censorship.

Despite the Justice Department's efforts to correct the oversights, a selfie of a naked woman in a bathroom and another photograph of a bare-chested woman were still posted on the website as of Wednesday night. Their faces completely visible.

Some of the victims and their lawyers contacted the Justice Department this week to take down the website and appoint an independent observer to prevent further errors.

A judge scheduled a hearing in New York for Wednesday to discuss the matter, which he canceled after one of the victims' lawyers mentioned some progress in resolving the problem. However, that attorney, Brittany Henderson, said they were still considering “all possible avenues” to address the “permanent and irreparable” harm that has been caused to some of the women.

“This is not a merely technical failure,” he said in a statement. “It is a failure to protect human beings to whom our government promised protection. Until every document is properly redacted, this failure continues.”

Annie Farmer, who said she was 16 when she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and his confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell, said that although her name was already public, the documents improperly revealed other details she would prefer to keep private, such as her date of birth and her phone number.

“Right now, I'm actually mostly angry about the way this all played out,” she told NBC News. “The The fact that it has been carried out in a very careless manner, where this has put people in danger, is truly appalling.”

Government defends its censorship efforts

The Justice Department has attributed the problems to technical or human error and has said it has removed much of the material while it works to release properly censored versions.

The task of reviewing and censoring millions of pages of records was accomplished in a very short time. President Donald Trump signed the law requiring the release of the documents into law on Nov. 19, giving the Justice Department just 30 days to release the documents. The agency missed the deadline, in part because it said it needed more time to implement privacy protections.

Hundreds of lawyers had to suspend their regular duties, including overseeing criminal cases, to try to complete the document review, to the point that at least one judge in New York complained that the work was delaying other matters.

The database, posted on the Justice Department's website, represents the largest disclosure of files in the investigations into Epstein, who removed himself. life in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

Partial or no censorship

Associated Press reporters analyzing the documents have so far found several examples in which names and personal information of potential victims have been released.

They have also found many cases of excessive censorship.

In a news clipping included in the file, the Justice Department apparently crossed out the name “Joseph” from a caption showing a Nativity scene in a California church. "A Nativity scene depicting Jesus, Mary and (REDACTED)," it said.

In an email published in the archives, a dog's name was apparently redacted: "I spent an hour walking (REDACTED) and then another hour bathing, drying and brushing her. I hope she smells better!" the email said.

The Justice Department has said that staff preparing the files for release were instructed to limit redactions only to information related to victims and their families, although the names of many other people, including lawyers and public figures, are blacked out in many documents.

Uncensored Images

The Justice Department has said it intended to redact any part of a photograph that showed nudity, and any photo that might show a victim.

In some photos reviewed by the AP, the women's faces were hidden, but they kept much of their naked bodies exposed so the women probably felt embarrassed anyway. The photos show identifiable women trying on clothes in store changing rooms or lounging in swimsuits.

A set of more than 100 photographs of a young woman was virtually completely redacted, except for the last image where her face could be clearly seen.

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Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press is reviewing the published documents. by the Department of Justice in collaboration with journalists from CBS, NBC, MS NOW and CNBC. Journalists from one of these outlets work together to review the documents and share information about their content. Each outlet is responsible for its own coverage, independent of news about the documents.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.