Last month, the Ministry of Justice published more than 3 million documents linked to a convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. As the dumps shed light on Epstein himself social circle And activitiesthey also provide a rare window into the inner workings of a federal investigation, including how tech companies like Google respond to government requests for information.
WIRED found several grand jury subpoenas issued to Google in the DOJ’s most recent release, as well as files that appear to be Google-produced data on specific users and letters on Google letterhead responding to specific subpoena requests.
Google declined to comment on the specific documents included in the releases, but spokeswoman Katelin Jabbari said in a written statement that the company’s “processes for handling law enforcement requests are designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations. We review all legal requests for legal validity, and object to those that are overbroad, including objecting to some altogether.”
The documents show how much the government sometimes tries to obtain without a judge’s approval, how Google pushes back on requests that it says go beyond what is required by law, and what types of information the company has provided about its users.
Secret by design
Subpoenas are normally shrouded in secrecy. A letter 2019 Signed by the then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and addressed to Google’s legal department, the law prohibited the company from disclosing the existence of the letter to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator, the subject of the subpoena, for 180 days from the date of the order. The letter also asked Google to alert prosecutors if it planned to notify Maxwell of the order’s existence after the 180-day deadline expired, “in case the investigation remains ongoing and the order needs to be renewed.”
Even when the law doesn’t require it, prosecutors have asked for Google’s silence. A letter 2018 asking Google to preserve all emails (including those in draft and trash folders) and Google Drive content associated with four accounts Gmail also asked Google not to disclose the existence of the letter to anyone, including the people who own the accounts. The letter also asked Google to notify federal prosecutors if the company intended to make a disclosure, so prosecutors could “obtain a nondisclosure order if necessary.”
It is unclear whether Google notified account holders of the redacted emails after the 180-day period outlined in the 2019 letter expired. Google Privacy & Terms said that when it receives a request from a government agency, it will send an email about that request before disclosing that information, unless prohibited by law.
Back to basics
Many of the files included in Epstein’s dumps were titled “GOOGLE SUBSCRIBER INFORMATION” and contained the account name, recovery email address and phone numbers, Google services the account can access, the date the account was created, the “Terms of Service” IP address, and a log of IP address activity.
Mario Trujillo, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says subscriber information requires government access to the lowest legal bar under the law. Stored Communications Acta law from the 1980s that sets many rules about the type of information the government can access from electronic service providers like Google.
While certain types of information, such as emails contentrequire a search warrant under the law, “at the opposite end of the spectrum is basic subscriber information,” Trujillo says. The law explicitly allows the government to obtain this information with a simple subpoena, which does not necessarily require judicial approval.
In mail Understood In Epstein’s statements responding to the grand jury subpoenas, Google stressed that it followed state and federal laws, including the law that includes the Stored Communications Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and that it would delete information “exceeding the scope” of prosecutors’ request or otherwise protected from disclosure.
In recent weeks, Google And other platforms received administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security requesting information on otherwise anonymous users who have criticized the government. In a case involving Google in February, the company notified user before sharing their information with DHS. The user was able to retain the services of legal counsel and file a petition to cancel summons to appear in court.
Users can preview what their own subscriber information looks like by checking the “Google Account” box when downloading a copy of their data via Google to go. My subscriber information, for example, contained details that would make it easier for someone to request additional information from other service providers or verify it against other databases, such as my full name, the cell phone number I use for two-step verification, and an old email address I had in high school that is listed as a “recovery” email address.
“There is public anonymity, where you use an identifier that has nothing to do with your name and is not easily identifiable,” says Megan Graham, a law professor and director of the Technology Law Clinic at the University of Iowa. “But this public anonymity, depending on how you set up your account and the information you provided, may not be real or meaningful anonymity.”
Pesky details
Other files included in the Google-related Epstein documents include several titled “Export Summary” that appear to include an originating identifier, such as an email address, and a “Resolution Path” that may include Google account IDs, Android IDs, and billing customer numbers, depending on the type of service and resource described in the summary.
Some files labeled “Google Confidential and Proprietary” appear to be linked to a more recent request from 2025. Linked to a FBI incident report involving user “Catturd”, a notable right-wing X user according to the report. (It’s unclear exactly what type of government request these records were in response to, and the FBI declined to comment for this story. In the litter boxCatturd’s podcast, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
One of them, titled “CUSTOMER PROFILE DETAILS,” includes information about the customer’s date of birth, two separate mailing addresses, whether the customer has been approved for credit terms, and different identifiers corresponding to different parts of Google’s systems.
The other, titled “ANDROID DEVICE SETUP SERVICE DATA,” includes details about an Android device’s hardware and software, the device’s unique IMEI number, the device’s most recent security update, the date it first and last established a connection to the Android Device Setup Service and from what IP address, and a log of the most recent connections, among other information.
Google did not respond to questions about what type of government request related to customer profile details or Android device data. However, like subscriber information, users can view their Android device data by selecting “Android Device Configuration Service” while using it. Google to goand find out what customer payment information Google has about them at Google Payments.
Every six months, Google publishes statistics on the number of government requests it receives. Although it divides requests into different categories, including “subpoena,” it does not specify the type of subpoena (such as an administrative subpoena or grand jury) nor does it provide statistics on the agency or level of government that made the request.
Graham, of the University of Iowa, points out that the types of statistics Google shares about government requests have changed over time. Some of the first published data on U.S. applications, in 2009, did not include any details on the type of applications filed. Graham says: “There’s always a story to tell about the evolving nature of what Google considers important, based on the analysis it does at the time it releases information. »