Here’s What a Google Subpoena Response Looks Like, Courtesy of the Epstein Files | WIRED

Overview

Here’s What a Google Subpoena Response Looks Like, Courtesy of the Epstein Files

Last month, the Department of Justice released over 3 million documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. While the dumps shed light on Epstein’s own social circle and activities, they 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.

Details

WIRED found several grand jury subpoenas addressed to Google in the DOJ’s most recent release, along with files that appear to be Google data produced about specific users and letters on Google letterhead responding to specific subpoena requests.

Google declined to comment on the specific documents included in the dumps, but spokesperson Katelin Jabbari said in a written statement that the company’s “processes for handling law enforcement requests are designed to protect users' privacy while meeting our legal obligations. We review all legal demands for legal validity, and we push back against those that are overbroad, including objecting to some entirely.”

The documents show how much the government will sometimes attempt to obtain without a judge’s sign-off, how Google pushes back against requests that it says are beyond what’s required by law, and what types of information the company has turned over about its users.

Subpoenas are normally shrouded in secrecy. A 2019 letter signed by the then US attorney for the Southern District of New York and addressed to Google’s legal department prohibited the company by law from revealing the letter’s existence to Epstein coconspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, the subject of the subpoena, for 180 days from the date of the order. The letter also instructed Google to alert prosecutors if it planned to tell Maxwell about the existence of the order after the 180 days were up, “in case the investigation remains ongoing and the order needs to be renewed.”

Even when not required by law, prosecutors requested Google’s silence. A 2018 letter instructing Google to preserve all emails (including those in draft and trash folders) and Google Drive content associated with four gmail accounts also requested that Google not disclose the existence of the letter to anyone, including the people who owned the accounts. The letter also requested that Google notify federal prosecutors if the company intended to make a disclosure, so the prosecutors could “obtain a non-disclosure order if necessary.”

It’s unclear whether Google informed the account holders of the redacted emails after the 180-day period described in the 2019 letter were up. Google’s privacy and terms says that when it receives a request from a government agency, it will email the subject of that request before it discloses that information, unless it is prohibited by law.

Mario Trujillo, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that subscriber information requires the lowest legal bar for the government to access under the Stored Communications Act, a 1980s law that lays out a lot of the rules for what kind of information the government can access from electronic service providers like Google.

While some types of information, like email contents, require a search warrant under the law, “on the opposite end of that is basic subscriber information,” Trujillo says. The act explicitly permits the government to obtain that information with just a subpoena, which does not necessarily require judicial approval.

In letters included in the Epstein releases responding to grand jury subpoenas, Google emphasized that it was following state and federal law, including the statute that the Stored Communications Act is a part of, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and that it would redact information “exceeding the scope” of the prosecutors’ request or otherwise protected from disclosure.

In recent weeks, Google and other platforms have received administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security requesting subscriber information about otherwise anonymous users who have criticized the government. In a February case involving Google, the company notified the user prior to sharing their information with DHS. The user was able to retain legal counsel and file a petition to quash the subpoena in court.

Users can preview what their own subscriber information looks like by selecting the “Google Account” checkbox when they download a copy of their data via Google Takeout. My subscriber information, for example, contained details that would make it easier for someone to request additional information from other service providers or cross-check with other databases, like my full name, the cell phone number I use for two-step verification, and an older email address I had in high school that is listed as a “recovery” email address.

“There’s public-facing anonymity, where you’re using a handle that has nothing to do with your name and isn’t readily identifiable,” says Megan Graham, a law professor and director of the Technology Law Clinic at the University of Iowa. “But that public-facing anonymity, depending on how you set up your account and what information you provided, may not be true or meaningful anonymity.”

Other files included in the Google-related Epstein documents include several entitled “Export Summary” that appear to include an original identifier, such as an email address, and a “Resolution Path” that can include Google account IDs, Android IDs, and billing customer numbers, depending on the type of service and resource the summary describes.

Some files with “Google Confidential and Proprietary” labels appear to be connected to a more recent 2025 request. Related to an FBI incident report involving an X user that allegedly created a group called “People who covered up Epstein but are not high profile, soon to be shot in the head,” the request included the notable right-wing X user “Catturd,” according to the report. (It’s unclear what kind of government request these files were in response to, and the FBI declined to comment on this story. Representatives for In the Litterbox, Catturd’s podcast, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

One, titled “CUSTOMER PROFILE DETAILS,” includes information about the customer’s date of birth, two separate postal addresses, whether the customer was approved for credit terms, and different identifiers that correspond to different parts of Google’s systems.

The other, titled, “ANDROID DEVICE CONFIGURATION SERVICE DATA,” includes details about the hardware and software of an Android device, the device's unique IMEI number, the device’s most recent security update, when it first and most recently made an Android device configuration service connection and from what IP address, and a log of most recent connections, among other information.

Google wouldn’t respond to questions about what type of government request was connected to the customer profile details or Android device data. Like subscriber information though, users can see their Android device data by selecting “Android Device Configuration Service” when using Google Takeout, and see what customer payment information Google has about them on Google Payments.

Every six months, Google publishes statistics about the number of government requests it receives. Although it breaks out requests into different categories including “subpoena,” it doesn’t specify the type of subpoena—such as an administrative or grand jury subpoena—nor does it provide statistics about what agency or level of government made the request.

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Key Takeaways

• Here’s What a Google Subpoena Response Looks Like, Courtesy of the Epstein Files

• Last month, the Department of Justice released over 3 million documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein

• WIRED found several grand jury subpoenas addressed to Google in the DOJ’s most recent release, along with files that appear to be Google data produced about specific users and letters on Google letterhead responding to specific subpoena requests

• Google declined to comment on the specific documents included in the dumps, but spokesperson Katelin Jabbari said in a written statement that the company’s “processes for handling law enforcement requests are designed to protect users' privacy while meeting our legal obligations

• The documents show how much the government will sometimes attempt to obtain without a judge’s sign-off, how Google pushes back against requests that it says are beyond what’s required by law, and what types of information the company has turned over about its users