Why Is An Epstein Associate Collecting Millions Of Children’s Faces?

Summary

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Camp Gagnon Podcast Summary

Episode: Why Is An Epstein Associate Collecting Millions Of Children’s Faces?
Host: Mark Gagnon
Guest/Producer: Christos Papadopados
Date: March 5, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode investigates the growing controversy surrounding LifeTouch, the predominant school photography company in the United States. Mark Gagnon and Christos Papadopados question private data collection practices, background checks, and institutional oversight, especially since LifeTouch’s ownership chain leads up to Apollo Global Management—co-founded by Leon Black, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein. The discussion explores the implications of mass collection of children’s data and images, institutional trust, and the potential for data misuse or exploitation, prompting broader questions about privacy, consent, and accountability within educational institutions.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction to the LifeTouch Controversy

• Mark sets the stage by describing the ubiquity of school picture days and the lack of attention paid to who is behind the camera and what happens with the collected images.
• “All documented and stored by one company that most parents have never thought twice about, and that company is LifeTouch. And they photograph more children than any other organization in America.” — Mark [01:00]
• Recent blowback: School districts canceling contracts; parents withholding children from picture days due to concerns about privacy and company practices.

2. History and Operations of LifeTouch

• Founded in 1936, monopolized school photography—now photographs in 50,000+ schools nationwide.
• Acquired by Shutterfly for $825M in 2018, then by Apollo Global Management for $2.7B in 2019.
• Contracts are exclusive with schools, not subject to competitive parental choice. Even if parents don’t purchase images, all data (photos, names, schools) is stored.

3. Concerns Around School Photographer Access and Employment Structure

• School photographers are often independent contractors, not full employees—background check requirements vary widely by state.
• Documented incidents: Mark cites specific criminal cases involving school photographers in Texas (2017) and Florida (2019).
• “What is going – that is insane.” — Mark [09:18] (on a serious incident involving a LifeTouch photographer and criminal activity)

4. LifeTouch Data Practices and Privacy Risks

• Data Profiles: Include names, schools, grades, teacher names, high-resolution images, mailing addresses, sometimes dates of birth.
• Tension with the rise of AI and facial recognition: Such a database represents a unique and potentially valuable resource.
• Shutterfly (LifeTouch’s parent) has faced class action lawsuits over biometric data collection (2021).
• “When LifeTouch photographs your kid, they're not just capturing one image. They're creating a data profile… All of that data is stored for LifeTouch... These are questions that most parents never even think because school photography has just always been there.” — Mark [13:16]
• LifeTouch’s official stance: They claim they do not and have never sold or shared images with third parties; used only for schools/parents and law enforcement (Smile Safe cards).

5. Institutional Trust and Risk: The Epstein-Black-Apollo Connection

• Apollo Global Management owns LifeTouch through Shutterfly.
• Leon Black, Apollo’s co-founder, had a long, documented relationship with Jeffrey Epstein ($158M in payments for “tax advice,” being a trustee of Epstein’s foundation, contributing to Epstein birthday tributes, etc.)
• Black later faced and denied sexual misconduct allegations (including at Epstein properties). He resigned from Apollo following these revelations; paid $62M to the US Virgin Islands to resolve civil claims related to Epstein.
• “The company that has access to the photographs of millions of American kids... is owned by a private equity firm whose co founder had a documented decades long financial relationship with with Jeffrey Epstein...” — Mark [23:01]

6. Systemic Patterns in Institutional Abuse

• Mark draws parallels to other large-scale, trust-based abuse scandals (Catholic Church, Boy Scouts), emphasizing how institutions gain and misuse trust, sometimes shielding abusers.
• “Any system that provides access to children needs to be examined and needs to be scrutinized, and its personnel need to be held with reliable accountability, not just trusted by default.” — Mark [24:28]

7. Data Value and Potential for Exploitation

• Mark speculates on the value of longitudinal child photograph data: possible uses in AI, developmental studies, or profit-driven sales.
• Raises the concern about breaches—children’s data is particularly valuable to bad actors.
• “Like, you have pictures of a kid for every single year for 12 years, and you have millions of these photos that then you could just upload to an LLM or some type of AI model... that data is probably really valuable...” — Mark [25:34]
• Christos adds: While school photos are a family tradition, maybe it’s time to rethink in-house alternatives or stricter safeguards.

8. Addressing the Audience

• Mark repeatedly clarifies, “not alleging LifeTouch is committing a crime,” but calls for transparency and stricter vetting.
• Encourages audience input:
  • “If you know anything about this LifeTouch situation that we didn't cover, please. I'd love to know what you think. If there's anything we missed, anything we got wrong, please drop a comment. I read all of them.” — Mark [31:49]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This is a massive company that was started back in 1936... Eventually, like, photographing something like 50,000 schools nationwide.” — Mark [05:07]
• “There have been documented cases, not rumors or anything, but like actual arrests and prosecutions of school photographers getting caught committing these crimes against children.” — Mark [09:15]
• “They say that they've never sold or given any of this data to a third party. Now we hope that that's true, but is it possible that when you are signing these... you're often consenting... without understanding the full scope of what you're agreeing to.” — Mark [14:50]
• “Because first off, the whole point is to prevent powerful people from using institutional frameworks to gain access and avoid accountability.” — Mark [23:23]
• “Like, I don't think, you know, you have a person at the top of one of these companies that's like, oh, we're going to exploit kids. It's just like, hey, we have all of this data sitting on hard drives. The hard drives cost money, we have a business to run and some other company is going to offer us hundreds of millions of dollars just to get access to this data.” — Mark [27:52]
• (Joking about solutions) “Like, or a freelance photographer, videographer that works for a certain podcast. I could do that too.” — Christos [31:13]
• “But it's just. It's just one of those things, like... I want. I wonder if there's a way to do it. Like maybe like, hey, all the files get deleted. Hey, like these get printed and then the hard drive is like given to the school. It never goes off site.” — Mark [31:20]

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Key Timestamps

• 01:00: Mark introduces LifeTouch, raises initial privacy/data concerns
• 05:07: History and scale of LifeTouch described
• 08:00 – 11:00: Background check shortcomings and specific criminal incidents
• 13:16: Risks inherent in data retention and facial recognition lawsuits
• 17:22: Mark connects institutional risks to the Epstein-Black-Apollo ownership structure
• 23:01: Explains Leon Black’s financial relationship with Epstein, settlements, and legal investigations
• 25:34: Mark speculates on data value and corporate incentives
• 27:43: Christos and Mark discuss the practical and emotional sides of school photo traditions and alternatives
• 31:05: Group discussion on solutions, Christos offers alternatives, Mark suggests stricter data handling
• 31:49: Mark invites listener feedback

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Overall Tone and Delivery

• Conspiratorial, inquisitive, but balanced—Mark often reiterates that there is no direct evidence of malfeasance by LifeTouch or connection to Epstein beyond the indirect ownership line.
• Mixes in humor and banter with Christos for levity, especially in audience call-outs and light-hearted skepticism.
• Emphasizes skepticism and the need for accountability, rather than paranoia.

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Takeaway

The episode raises vital questions about the intersection of technology, corporate consolidation, and children’s privacy, especially when institutional trust may not be warranted. While there is no hard evidence of ill intent or crime by LifeTouch, Mark and Christos urge scrutiny, transparency, and updated policies in data stewardship—especially in contexts involving children—while exposing surprising connections that highlight the broader importance of vigilant oversight.

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Listener Prompt:
What do you think about how your (or your child’s) school handles photo day and data? Do you agree that the system should change? Drop a comment and join the conversation.

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Transcript

[Mark Gagnon]

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[Mark Gagnon]

Every year, millions of American children line up in gymnasiums and cafeterias across the country. And they comb their hair, they straighten their collars, and they smile on command while a stranger with a camera captures their image and their name and their school and their grade and their face. All documented and stored by one company that most parents have never thought twice about, and that company is LifeTouch. And they photograph more children than any other organization in America. More than Disney, more than the school system itself, more than the Department of Education, more than the government. And here's the question that almost no one is asking. Who are these people behind the camera? And more importantly, what happens to all of those photographs after picture day is over? Now, this isn't some hit piece on school photography. That's not what we do here. But it really is asking a question about privacy and data, and ultimately, who has the right to your information and your face? And should another company be able to store that and access it and back it up for years? And what could they do with it if they wanted to? Well, we're going to answer all that and more. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up, people? And welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week, we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world. From all time, forever. Yes, that is what we do here at the campsite. All right. This is my attempt to basically understand everything that's been going on, figure out everything that's gonna happen, and really just try to make sense of this world around me. All right? And, yeah, I mean, I just want to, you know, just say thank you so much to every person that clicked on this video and makes this channel possible. Truly. I mean, every time you guys engage with the content, you not only make my dreams come true, you keep the lights on here, the camps, and you keep the fire burning. And as a matter of fact, we actually changed the light system. It was adjusted because we got a comment from a gmolo11111 that said, hey, Mark, you and the tent are awesome. Which I appreciate that. All right. And then he also said you should dim the lights and vibe in the tent. It helps when having the video playing at night. Well, you ask and you shall receive. Now, I'm sure you're wondering, Mark, who did control the lights? Who actually was the person that dimmed them? Well, it's my good pal Christos Papadopados, and he sits in the tent with me every single day, and he tries to figure out all the stuff that's going on as well. Christos, how are you?

[Christos Papadopados]

I'm doing great, Mark.

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm glad to hear it, Christos, but we don't have time because we're talking about life. Touch? All right, all right. You said you were gonna. You said you had something planned. Well, it just scares me. Okay, all right, you know what? This is why we can't even dive into it. Okay? But look, I also want to give a shout out to all the people that comment on the last episode. We got some funny comments. I got this guy, Ulysses 3, 9, 8 said. He said, you guys got Obama looking like a Hershey kiss in the thumbnail. That is racist and very funny. Unfortunately, that is. That's a banger. So my bad, Obama. And it also says, all right, here we go. We got aliens being confirmed before GTA 6. That is a good point, Jay Bader. And I mean, let's see, what else? Oh, your producer sounds like a talkative Riley Mao.

[Christos Papadopados]

Theo Von's producer shout out.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's so funny, dude. Miles does sound like a talkative, unbustable Riley Mao. I love the unbustable Riley Mao. You've seen that. He's great. It's so funny. The unbustable Riley Mao. But apparently he's busted a couple times now. Well, let's go, Riley Mao. Here we go. That's fire. I love it.

[Christos Papadopados]

Now, Mark, I kind of Want to set the mood for what we're talking about today? Just an example of a. A school photo that went to Life Touch.

[Co-host/Guest]

Okay.

[Mark Gagnon]

Dude, no way. That's you.

[Christos Papadopados]

That was me.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, that still is you.

[Christos Papadopados]

That's the guy I used to be.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's exactly what you look like now. Yeah, yeah. That's like you, basically. Exactly. I can't believe you're doing a face reveal, dude.

[Christos Papadopados]

That's not me anymore.

[Mark Gagnon]

So of you as a kid, dude. Damn, that's wild. And that's actually LifeTouch?

[Christos Papadopados]

I think so, yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

That is so funny. Yeah. We had Life Touch come to my school, which is a tricky name for a company that's been embroiled in a lot of controversy. Life Touch not ideal. Well, if you don't know what we're talking about, don't worry. Okay, I'm about to fill you in. Basically understand why people are talking about LifeTouch and why this conspiracy theory and, you know, this whole sort of scandal exists in the first place. Let me just give you some context. Basically, school districts around the country are canceling their contracts with LifeTouch. Parents are keeping their children home while LifeTouch is going to do school photos across the country. It's a huge thing. And people are looking around saying, like, what is going on? Why is there this massive blowback against the people that, you know, set up a drapes and take photos of a kid in a gym? Like what? Like this for the yearbook. Like what? What could possibly be going on here? And the answer is multifaceted. And we're going to go through all the different angles. But for some context on LifeTouch, this is a massive company that was started back in 1936 in Minnesota, basically during the Great Depression. And a photographer named Eldon Roth G realized that schools basically were kind of an untapped market and parents wanted pictures of their kids. And schools needed, you know, this revenue stream. And, you know, this was a partnership that was born and basically grew into something way, way bigger. And for decades, LifeTouch dominated the school photography industry. Eventually, like, photographing something like 50,000 schools nationwide. Like 50,000. And then Shutterfly acquired the company in 2018 for $825 million. Almost a B. Almost a capital billion dollars. Now, Life Touch had become so embedded in the school experience that most Americans couldn't, you know, even imagine picture day without them. And they kind of like low key, monopolized the whole vibe. They were just like, yeah, we're just going to come in, take pictures, you guys get them it's so easy. Now let's talk about how the business actually works, okay? LifeTouch contracts with school districts for these, exclusive access to do the photographs. And these aren't competitive bids where parents basically, like, choose their photographer or anything like that. They are just institutional agreements that grant one company the right to come to schools during the day and happen to photograph every child in the building. Which sounds kind of creepy. Okay? And I, again, I don't want to accuse this company of some type of wrongdoing outright, okay? They haven't been charged of any type of crime or anything like that. But I. I just want to explain why it's a little weird. Okay? Basically, you have these photographers that show up and are often seasonal, you know, like contractors, and they're hired for, like, the fall and spring, and. And then they go in, and then parents receive, like, the photo package in the mail, and they can choose to purchase prints. And, you know, that's the part that people don't really think about that the photography happens regardless of whether parents buy anything or not. Right? Like, it's all then stored, and the data that's attached to it is put into servers that are owned by LifeTouch. And by itself, this seems pretty innocent, right? School photos are a tradition that go back generations. It's something that's just like a part of culture. You know, parents want the pictures of their kids at all the ages. And I've seen moms, like, put them in, like, a little scrapbook of, like, every year. And you see your little kid grow up. It's cute, right? We all think it's cute. The problem is the access and the data that I don't think people are really thinking about. And I think this whole Life Touch thing kind of put online what people were feeling about, like, social media for the longest time. Like, yeah, you just share some photos of your family, right? It's cute. And then all of a sudden you're like, wait a second, what. What are they doing with all this information and who are they giving it to? And it's being sold. Like, I think a lot of people didn't realize that until a few years ago. And this Life Touch thing is just kind of like the newest iteration of that. So first there's the access problem, okay. Which is unfortunate, but it is something that needs to be addressed. We've all kind of been through this Life Touch situation, right? You have some guy come in, he comes and, you know, tells you how to take photos and sits you down in front of a drape and, you know, lifts your chin up and fixes your shirt. And this is, this person's a stranger, right? They're not a teacher, an administrator or school employee. And they've been hired by this outside company to basically come in and do this specific task. And the photographer like, tells your child where to stand and where to look and, you know, all of that. And it's initiated by this stranger, normalized by the institutional setting to the point where no one even thinks that, you know, it could be potentially problematic. And the photographer is just trusted by default because they showed up with a camera and a lanyard that says they are from this company that's then, you know, sponsored by the school district. But you have to ask, like, there must be a background check requirement, right? Well, the answer varies depending on where you live. Some states require extensive background checks for anyone who works in schools in any capacity, including vendors and contractors and these outside people. Other states have a lot looser requirements, particularly for workers who aren't classified as school employees. And here's the thing with these LifeTouch photographers, they are independent contractors. And the company has faced multiple lawsuits over its employment classification practices. And basically the lawsuits are alleging that LifeTouch misclassifies workers specifically to avoid the responsibilities and the costs that go along with full time employment. Now, does that include the level of vetting that a full employee would require? If you have a part time or a contract, does the vetting all of a sudden go down? The answer is we don't really know because the requirements vary by jurisdiction. But what we do know is that there have been documented cases, not rumors or anything, but like actual arrests and prosecutions of school photographers getting caught committing these crimes against children. So in 2017, a LifeTouch photographer in Texas was arrested for possession of material. This same individual who had this disgusting material was hired to photograph children in a school. What is going that is insane. And then in 2019, a school photographer working for a different company in Florida was arrested after allegations of inappropriate behavior during photo sessions. And these cases are disgusting. And of course they made local news and then just disappeared. Because these isolated incidents don't become national stories and because we've been trained to kind of see them as, you know, one off crazy things, you know, it's like, ah, it's a, a bad apple, right? But how many incidents don't result in arrest? How many situations never get reported because a kid didn't know what was going on or know that the, you know, behavior was inappropriate? What's up, people? We're gonna take a break really quick

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[Mark Gagnon]

Now there's another issue that I think is actually more pressing and Potentially even more problematic, if you can believe that, and that is the issue of data. When LifeTouch photographs your kid, they're not just capturing one image. They're creating a data profile that includes your kid's name and their school and the grade level and the teacher's name, and a high resolution photo of their face, often with multiple different photos and their home address for mailing purposes. And some schools are also sharing dates of birth and other identifying information as a part of the admin process. And all of that data is stored for LifeTouch. It's stored by them on their servers and for how long and under what type of security and with what restrictions of what can be shared and when and how and what can be sold. These are questions that most parents never even think because school of photography has just always been there. And it seems fine, right? Like they send you something in the mail like it's whatever. But we live in a different world. This is a world of data and data harvesting and in the age of facial recognition technology, a database containing high quality photos of millions upon millions of kids over the years tagged with their names and the locations and personal information. It represents something unprecedented. And sure, like maybe this is paranoia or whatever, but there's also a real thing here. And this is the reality of how modern data systems work and how they're increasingly becoming integrated with artificial intelligence and biometric identification tools. Now, Shutterfly, who owns LifeTouch, has already been involved in facial recognition controversies. So in 2021, the company faced a class action lawsuit in Illinois over allegations that their photo apps were scanning and storing users facial geometry without consent in violation with the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act. Now, the case was eventually settled and you know, it was, you know, taken care of, you could say. But it raised serious questions about how the company treats biometric data and whether the millions of children's faces in their database are subject to the same practices. Now to be clear, the lawsuit that I just mentioned was against Shutterfly, not against LifeTouch. Shutterfly is the parent company that owns LifeTouch. But LifeTouch had never gone through this biometric lawsuit. Additionally, we have no evidence to suggest that LifeTouch is actually selling this data to third parties. And as a matter of fact, they put out a statement in relation to this massive scandal saying that when LifeTouch photographers take your students pictures, that image is safeguarded for families and schools only. LifeTouch does not and has never provided images to any third party. LifeTouch images are shared only for the purpose of school records and to allow parents to purchase them. Additionally, as a part of our decade long relationship with the national center for Missing and exploited children, LifeTouch prints Smile Safe cards free of charge for each student that we photograph that families can use with law enforcement if a child has gone missing. LifeTouch follows and all applicable federal, state and local privacy laws, including the Family Educational Rights Privacy act. In fact, LifeTouch was the first school photography company to sign voluntary enforceable privacy pledge reaffirming our deep commitment to protect school communities. So that comes from their own pr. They say that they've never sold or given any of this data to a third party. Now we hope that that's true, but is it possible that when you are signing these kinds of things with the fine print and you're looking at the terms of service and you don't actually go through the whole thing, you know, with, Maybe not with LifeTouch, but with other companies, you're often consenting to, you know, some type of photography or some other type of service without understanding the full scope of what you're agreeing to. Data retention policies, data sharing agreements, security protocols. These details are often buried in the terms of service that most parents never see. And in an era when data breaches happen constantly. Right. I mean, even if they don't sell it, it's possible these things get hacked. And when children's personal information is particularly valuable to bad actors, when companies routinely discover that their own privacy policies weren't being followed, these aren't hypothetical concerns. They are the reality of how our modern information ecosystem works. And children's data is obviously, it's a part of that ecosystem, whether we've thought about it or not. Now, it's possible that there's nothing really here, that LifeTouch is just a normal company that hides all the data and keeps it all very safe and secure and that it's never going to get breached and everything's fine.

[Co-host/Guest]

Sure.

[Mark Gagnon]

But it should be asked, and I think the question should be, you know, brought up. Right. And I think we should shine a light on these types of institutions because this is where this type of corruption could occur. I mean, again, Jeffrey Epstein was able to go undetected for so long because he basically became a part of this institutional sort of figurehead. And these types of things typically have this type of pattern, right. And in, just in lieu of the Epstein situation, I think we should take a look at all of these types of institutions that potentially have access to our kids and our kids data. So I mean, Typically, these institutional abuse cases have a pretty clear sort of structure. First, there's a presentation as trustworthy, right? And oftentimes institutional abusers will do that. And then second, you align yourself with other respected institutions. You get hired, you get appointed, you get contracts. And then third, you use that institutional legitimacy to gain trust. So once you're inside the system, you inherit the trust of the people that basically, you know, hold up the system itself and put you in that place. And then fourth, you exploit that access. The same institutional structure that gives you legitimacy also will give you cover. I mean, this is what happened with, you know, the Catholic Church scandal. And you had priests that are given this institutional legitimacy that now have this unredacted access to so many kids that then were abused. And the Boy Scouts of America and teachers across the country and, you know, different organizations will be exploited by bad people in order to carry this out. And LifeTouch is another one of those, which is why I think a lot of people have brought up this company specifically in relation to the Epstein files. Now, the other reason that this whole LifeTouch thing has become such a massive story is because of the people that are casually involved. So this company, LifeTouch, that photographs millions of children across the country and has been doing so for decades, is owned by a company called Apollo Global Management. It is one of the largest private equity firms in the world. And Apollo acquired Shutterfly, LifeTouch's parent company, in September of 2019 for $2.7 billion. So you have LifeTouch here. Shutterfly owns that, and then Apollo Global Management owns that. Now, who co found Apollo Global Management? That is a man named Leon Black. Now, just to be very careful here, this is what is documented versus what is alleged. And I'll be very clear about both. What is confirmed in document is that Leon Black co founded Apollo Management in 1990 and he served as the company's CEO for decades. And then in 2019, while Black was still the CEO, Apollo acquired Shutterfly, who owned LifeTouch. And that is a very undisputed chain of ownership. What is also confirmed and documented is that Leon Black had a long standing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. How long? According to an independent review commissioned by Apollo itself, not by prosecutors or journalists, but by Apollo's own board, Leon Black paid Jeffrey Epstein Approximately $158 million between 2012 and 2017. And this payment and or rather these payments were allegedly for tax advice and estate planning services. That is what Leon Black's attorneys have claimed. Now, he wasn't a casual acquaintance Typically speaking, I mean, that's not how I would classify it. In 1997, Black made Epstein of the original trustees of his family foundation. According to the investigative reporting, Black contributed a handwritten poem to Epstein's 50th birthday album in 2003, an album compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell herself that included lines about Epstein's relationships with women spread out geographically. The poem was signed love and kisses. Leon doesn't seem like a super casual relationship to me. This seems like they were, you know, so pretty friendly, needless to say. And in 2021, following the release of the Independent Review and mounting public pressure, Leon Black stepped down as CEO and later as chairman of Apollo Global Management. And he stated that he deeply regrets his relationship with Epstein. And his attorneys have said multiple times that he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's misconduct or crimes. Now, what is alleged but not proven is that multiple women have filed lawsuits against Leon Black of sexual misconduct. One lawsuit alleged a Black sexually abused woman at Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan townhouse. Another allegation was that he sexually abused a 16 year old girl with disabilities at Epstein's residence. Again, these are only allegations and Black has denied all of them, saying that they are frivolous. And some of these lawsuits have been dismissed or discontinued. And as of this recording, no criminal charges have been filed against Leon Black. What's up guys? We're gonna take a break really quick

[Co-host/Guest]

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[Mark Gagnon]

Now let's get back to the show. In 2023, Leon Black paid $62 million to the US Virgin Islands to be released from civil claims related to Jeffrey Epstein. A settlement is not an admission of guilt, but it is a very large sum of money to pay in order to have these problems just stop. And as recently as July of 2025, Senator Ron Wyden called on the IRS to investigate potential tax evasion related to the payments that Leon Black made to Epstein. And that investigation, as far as far as we know, is still ongoing. So here's the picture, right? The company that has access to the photographs of millions of American kids and their names and their schools and their faces, owned by a private equity firm whose co founder had a documented decades long financial relationship with with Jeffrey Epstein and paid him over $150 million and has been accused, although not convicted, of serious misconduct at Epstein's own residences. Now, does that mean LifeTouch is doing anything wrong? Obviously not. Okay. There is no evidence that LifeTouch's operations have been affected in any way by the Epstein connection or that Leon Black had any type of direct access to the data that LifeTouch owned. Leon Black stepped down from Apollo in 2021. Shutterfly and LifeTouch operate as separate business units within their own management. But when we talk about this institutional access, when we talk about who has access to children and why we should be asking these questions. This is exactly the kind of connection that I think matters. Because first off, the whole point is to prevent powerful people from using institutional frameworks to gain access and avoid accountability. And secondly, this shows us just how far of a reach people like Epstein have in areas all over the country, in the world that we probably wouldn't have expected. You probably don't think that, oh, Epstein has a direct connection to the guy that basically owns all the photos of every kid in America. But it's technically true, or at least allegedly true. Now the lesson here is that any system that provides access to children needs to be examined and needs to be scrutinized, and its personnel need to be held with reliable accountability, not just trusted by default. And this isn't again about paranoia. It's about seeing predators behind, you know, These cameras that could be potentially using this as cover to exploit a potentially vulnerable system. And it's happened many times before in different institutions. Whether it's, you know, Boy Scouts, Catholic church, whatever, it could happen again. And this is one of those situations that maybe people should be looking at. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a sort of brief overview of the LifeTouch scandal and what is actually going on and why so many schools are canceling their picture days with this company. I mean, it's interesting. It is. It raises a question to me. I mean, obviously, these companies that have access to kids need to be vetted, and the people that are actually interfacing with these kids need to go through a very, very, you know, deliberate and thorough background check to make sure that they have no prior convictions, no prior misconducts, reports with anything related to, I mean, really any crime. To be honest, if you're talking to my kid, like, don't go to jail for anything. Like, if you're being brought in by the school. You know what I mean? So I think that's obvious. The data part is the most interesting thing to me because it's like, what could a company do with all of this access to data for years? Like, you have pictures of a kid for every single year for 12 years, and you have millions of these photos that then you could just upload to an LLM or some type of AI model that then can. I don't even know what they could do. I mean, like, I'm sure it's great training data at the very least, and that data is probably really valuable to show an LLM. Like, hey, here's how humans develop, and here's the same human over 12 years developing. And, you know, what kind of inferences can you make based off of, you know, human development, things like that.

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[Christos Papadopados]

PG13 do you think that's part of like how they take a picture of a kid and they go, they, they were missing for five years. This is what they would look like now?

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, I think there is science behind that of like human genetics to understand what a genetically developmental child would, you know, turn into. Obviously I think AI is contributing to that, but again, I don't think there's any data to suggest that life touches the one that's giving that information out, but it would be valuable. And I could see a company trying to pay a lot of money and I could see a greedy corporation being like, oh wait, how much money can we make for this data that we're just sitting on? You know what I mean? That's the part that I get worried about because it's like, you know, I think that we are just living in a system where the interests and the incentive structure points people into doing bad things. Like, I don't think, you know, you have a person at the top of one of these companies that's like, oh, we're going to exploit kids. It's just like, hey, we have all of this data sitting on hard drives. The hard drives cost money, we have a business to run and some other company is going to offer us hundreds of millions of dollars just to get access to this data. Like, we need to show, you know, more profit this quarter than the past quarter. We need to show that we're, you know, growing. I'm the new CEO, I'm stressed, I'm going to get fire. So yeah, let's just give them some of this data. Maybe not all of it, maybe we do some of it. Da, da, da. And then that just becomes a slippery slope where eventually you're giving away all this data of people's kids without their consent. And I mean, I don't even post pictures of my kid on the Internet at all. Like, there's no photos of my child on the Internet in any capacity. So it's like, you know, I'm very strict with that just because, like, I don't need it out there. And also like my kid didn't consent to being on the Internet, you know what I mean? I'm like, I try to respect my kids autonomy where it's like, this is a photo that like I want to show my parents, but I don't need to blast it on the Internet for other people to see. Just So I can like get likes off of it. Like, I. That, that always was weird to me. I mean, I get if you're not in the public eye and you don't have an audience of, you know, people that are like, you know, commenting and stuff on the Internet, then maybe it's not as bad. But for me, on a personal basis, I just don't like it. So I would feel weird if my kid went to school and had his information getting sent around, sold to other companies. Again, not the LifeTouch doing that, but that possibility is there. And then of course, a data breach, some hacker group gets in there and is able to access all these files. Like, who knows what they could do. Whether it's like deep fake AI, like whatever. It's like, it's like all very dark and nefarious. And the fact that the guy that owned and co founded the hedge fund or the vc, the fact that. Or the private equity group. Sorry, the fact that he was boys with Epstein is just crazy. Like, just what an absolute insane thing.

[Christos Papadopados]

Again, big. Allegedly. No connection between the two in this situation specifically.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, but Epstein and Leon Black were friends, right? And you know, again, not alleging that Life Touch and Epstein ever had any connection, that Epstein even knew what Life Touch was, but the fact that they were friends is just a crazy ripple that like, yeah, dude, like this company has access to kids data and the most notorious, you know, sex trafficker in America have relationship. Maybe it's like, yeah, it's just coincidence, but it's just weird to me, you know, that's the. That's the only thing I'm thinking, but who knows? Christos, what are your thoughts?

[Christos Papadopados]

I think ultimately I have a niece and every year we just look forward to getting the school pictures.

[Mark Gagnon]

They're so cute. Yeah, they're so nice. So it's. Maybe there's a better way to do it. I don't know, maybe schools could do it in house. Like, there must be a way. Like, cameras are cheap enough now.

[Christos Papadopados]

Like, or a freelance photographer, videographer that works for a certain podcast. I could do that too.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, it's possible. I don't know, Crisos, I wouldn't let you near school. But it's just. It's just one of those things, like you need. Yeah, I don't know. I want. I wonder if there's a way to do it. Like maybe like, hey, all the files get deleted. Hey, like these get printed and then the hard drive is like given to the school. It never goes off site. Something like that. I don't know. There must be a way. Maybe Life Touch is working on that now and maybe there's some good that comes from all this bad, you know? But what do you guys think? Please drop a comment. If you, if you know anything about this Life Touch situation that we didn't cover, please. I'd love to know what you think. If there's anything we missed, anything we got wrong, please drop a comment. I read all of them. YouTube and Spotify. If you have a funny joke, please drop that in there, too, because I like to laugh. All right. Also, if you like history deep dives, great news. We have history camp. If you like religion deep dives, we got religion camp. And if you just like chilling with us here in the tent for Camp Gagnon going on some crazy conspiracy wormholes, great news for you. We do these every single week. So drop a comment and. Yeah, I'll see you guys next time. God bless you.

[Christos Papadopados]

Peace.