A top school photo and yearbook company this winter found itself swept up in a social media-fueled controversy alleging a connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
The rumors were enough to prompt dozens of school districts—responding to parent concerns about whether their children’s photos could end up in the wrong hands—to review their use of Lifetouch and for some to sever ties altogether with the company that shoots 25 million student portraits a year.
But the claims made by supposed online sleuths were “preposterous, flimsy at best, and really unfortunate,” Lifetouch Group CEO Ken Murphy told Education Week in his first interview since the rumors began over the winter.
The controversy stemmed from a link social media accounts drew between Epstein, the well-connected financier and convicted sex offender, and Lifetouch via Apollo Global Management, the private equity owner of the photo company’s corporate parent Shutterfly. Apollo’s former CEO, Leon Black, paid Epstein tens of millions of dollars a year for what he said was personal tax work and estate planning advice.
But Apollo didn’t acquire Shutterfly until after Epstein’s 2019 death, Black stepped down five years ago, and Shutterfly—which became Lifetouch’s corporate parent in 2018—is one of nearly 200 companies in Apollo’s fold, The Wall Street Journal reported. (Black has denied wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity.)
Murphy, who took over at Lifetouch in 2024, said the company has used the Epstein-related fallout as a chance to share information more broadly about its existing safety measures and privacy protocols. The heightened interest in these practices is “actually a really positive storyline,” he said.
Most districts that reviewed their ties with Lifetouch have since resumed doing business with the company, according to Murphy.
Murphy spoke with EdWeek about the controversy, his company’s response, safety and security protocols, and future plans. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What was your first thought upon hearing about this?
Our initial reaction was to have empathy for the concern. Certainly, if I as a father felt that something was amiss with my children’s images or safety or security, I would absolutely want to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible. So, my first thought was really empathetic for parents who were concerned.
What was Lifetouch’s immediate response, and what have you done in the subsequent weeks?
We have had a long-standing relationship with so many of our district and school partners. We have certain schools that we’ve had the privilege of serving for up to 50 years, and that sort of long-standing tenure doesn’t happen in the absence of trust, and you have to manifest and build that in different ways at different moments in time.
We have tried to tell our story in a more pronounced way, to make sure that, first and foremost, our schools, our superintendents, our district offices, boards, and so on had the facts.
[Murphy later elaborated that the company worked quickly to post a public statement from him on the Lifetouch website, along with an FAQ clarifying the company’s relationship with Leon Blackand its safety protocols.]
Several districts severed ties right away; others initiated reviews of contracts, putting your working relationship in jeopardy. What do you make of that?
The good news, if you fast forward, is that an overwhelming majority of those who had originally said, ‘we’re pausing,’ or ‘we don’t want anything to do with Lifetouch'—as the truth has been borne out and as they’ve been able to ask good questions for which we can provide detailed answers, the overwhelming majority have come back.
Even at the height of this, well over 90% of our customers stood by us and reaffirmed their commitment. But for those who had genuine concern, we’re just grateful we’ve had an opportunity to be able to speak to that and walk folks through what we do.
Certainly, if I as a father felt that something was amiss with my children's images or safety or security, I would absolutely want to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible.
Most people very quickly got to the fact that, OK, this was a completely made-up conspiracy. But they still wanted to know, what’s going on with my images? Are they accessible? What are they? Are they protected?
And I think that’s why so many either stayed with us initially, or those who had some concerns have come back—because we’ve been able to walk folks through that.
Our goal has been to try to make the information as accessible as possible, to try to be as responsive as possible to inquiries, and to try to equip our schools and administrators—who they themselves are sometimes dealing directly with parents—with the facts and information that they can share more broadly.
And even for schools who decide to go elsewhere, our goal still is to try to help them make an informed decision, make sure they know what questions to ask or red flags to watch for and so on.
How do you ensure kids’ photos are safe and secure, both in terms of preventing them from being handed out to unauthorized people and from things like data breaches?
The things we want to underscore are things like our annual background checks for our photographers that are refreshed every year. Our photographers aren’t contractors. They work for Lifetouch as employees.
Also, image encryption is important, and maybe not something that most folks would be inclined to even think about.
After we capture an image, it is encrypted from the time it’s captured all the way through our processes.
If a photographer’s car is broken into before they get their stuff to the lab—their laptop is stolen or something like that—there’s no access to the images from that equipment.
And then, we have our own photo lab, so we’re not sending out images to third-party labs for editing, processing, and printing. We’re doing everything in-house.
Most people very quickly got to the fact that, OK, this was a completely made-up conspiracy. But they still wanted to know, what's going on with my images?
We voluntarily submit to an annual security and safety audit that’s conducted by a third party, which analyzes our privacy protections, storage-deletion protocols, the whole nine yards. And, while we comply fully with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, we were the first to voluntarily sign privacy pledges with nearly 30 states that add additional layers of protection and guardrails.
The data-retention and deletion protocols are important as well.
One of the wonderful things about our approach is if Mom and Dad or a guardian wants their data deleted, all they have to do is pick up the phone or fill out a form.
We also have long-standing policies around when we no longer do business with a school when those images are deleted.
There’s interest in access to the photos, so we have pretty rigorous protocols in place to validate that you are, in fact, a parent or a guardian or a family member.
[Each family receives a unique code to access photos of their child online, and there is no schoolwide or group browsing of photos, according to documents Lifetouch supplied after the interview. In addition, each school or district determines how long Lifetouch retains photos. Those documents, including Lifetouch’s privacy statement, also say the company doesn’t sell student data or photos to third parties.]
Has this episode caused Lifetouch to change any part of its operation? Any practices with relation to privacy or addressing parents’ concerns?
In any good business, you want to ask for feedback and understand what’s working and what is not. We do that all the time with families and administrators.
The specific answer to the question is, perhaps not necessarily borne out of this misinformation, but it has created an opportunity for more frequent dialogue around those pieces of what’s working and what’s not and how we can make the overall experience—be it for schools or faculty and staff or for the families—easier and better.
Some districts are still evaluating whether to continue doing business with Lifetouch and continue to face questions from parents about their relationship with your company. What’s your message for the leaders of those districts? For parents?
First and foremost is to acknowledge and appreciate the concern, because, particularly in this day and age, it’s the right question to be asking, and it’s a very logical conversation to be having. And I say that as someone whose occupation is in this industry, but my primary purpose in life is to be a father to five children.
The most redeeming thing about Lifetouch is that we are so fiercely committed to not only meeting but often exceeding the federal, state, and local privacy standards that are in play.
The rigor, the depth, and the investment in data privacy and information security have been long-standing at Lifetouch, and that won’t change.
There’s interest in access to the photos, so we have pretty rigorous protocols in place to validate that you are, in fact, a parent or a guardian or a family member.
