In the wake of the Department of Justice’s release of 3.5 million more pages of the Epstein Files last month, the student portrait company Lifetouch came under fire due to Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Apollo Global Management Company is the private equity firm that owns Shutterfly who acquired Lifetouch in 2018. Leon Black, the co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management Company until his Epstein-related resignation in 2021, was mentioned in the documents more than 8,000 times.
Lifetouch is known for taking student and teacher portraits for over 50,000 schools across the U.S., photographing 25 million students every year. Lifetouch keeps a database of these photos for up to 9 months after the photo is taken for parents to access and order prints.
Child Safety advocates have raised concerns over the privacy and security of these photos, given both Epstein’s child sex trafficking conviction and Black’s prior sexual abuse allegations. While there is no evidence within the files that proves the misuse of the photos from Lifetouch, critics argue that Black’s ownership and influence over the company should raise questions.
Lifetouch released a statement in response to these concerns, stating, “We’re committed to protecting the privacy and personal information of every student we serve… Lifetouch does not – and has never provided – images to any third party.”
The statement was met with a negative response on the company’s social media pages.
Despite the company’s reassurances, people are still skeptical. Butte College student Madeline Klink says the statment alone is not enough to ease these concerns. “There needs to be some sort of investigation; they can tell us that those photos have always been private, but can we really know that?”
As the public continues to examine the millions of newly released documents, more individuals and companies may be called upon by the public to answer for their direct or indirect ties to Jeffrey Epstein. For Lifetouch, it remains unclear whether the company’s statement will be sufficient to address ongoing public concerns.
