FBI Used Photos of Female Staff to Lure Sexual Predators 

A report by the Department of Justice inspector general’s office has revealed that agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation used photographs of young female office staff to pose as children or sex workers in undercover stings to “entice sexual predators,” despite them not being certified to work as undercover agents or as “online covert employees,” reports the Waashington Post. While the photos were blurred and the women clothed, they could still be downloaded, copied or shared beyond the sites they were used on, the report said — putting the female staff “in danger of becoming the victims of criminal offenses.” Some of the photos were also used in a sex trafficking investigation.

FBI policy states that office staff should not be used in undercover roles “unless it is absolutely necessary,” but lacks a policy specifically addressing the use of photos even though they only allow the use of another person’s identity in undercover operations with their consent and with proper authorization. The findings were triggered by an investigation into whether a male FBI agent was having an inappropriate relationship with a female office employee, during which he asked her for “provocative pictures of herself” for undercover operations and told the female staff “not to tell anyone, including their supervisors,” about the use of their photos. He also had not obtained written consent from the staff to use their photos and had not kept records of which employees’ photos he used or which social media platforms they were used on. The FBI said it would evaluate its policies and establish “new language” to address the issues described by the inspector general’s office and that it “fully accepted” the recommendations made in the report.