Airline sued after man used family's Peppa Pig laptop to film homemade porn videos
Delta Air Lines has been sued after an employee was accused of stealing an iPad tablet left behind by a child and using it to record porn videos of himself.
The device, stored in a case featuring children's cartoon character Peppa Pig, was misplaced by South Carolina passengers Tory and Brooke Brewer's child in July 2023.
After being stolen, it was used to record sexually explicit videos that were later uploaded to the family's iCloud, a lawsuit has claimed.
Now, the Brewers have sued Delta in a US district court in Charleston on 16 July, saying they're owed damages for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and harassment.
Advert
"What should have been a fun family getaway was riddled with confusion and anxiety over unauthorised access to their personal devices, a breach of privacy, and the transmission of highly inappropriate, explicit video recordings sent through their child’s personal devices, something they never would have expected," said a statement from the Brewers' attorney, Tola Familoni of Motley Rice law firm.
The lawyer added that the Brewers 'hold Delta accountable' for an alleged lack of meaningful response to their complaints over the situation prior to the lawsuit and hope to 'stop anything like this happening to any other families' who travel with US airlines.
Delta has since released a statement, identifying 'the accused individual' as being not a Delta employee 'but one of a vendor company'. They have not been named.
Delta added in its statement that the airline has 'zero tolerance for unlawful behavior of any kind but will decline to comment further on this pending litigation'.
On 19 July 2023, the couple and their kids traveled on a Delta flight from Charleston to New York City's JFK International Airport. From there, they hopped on a connecting flight to London, only later realising one of the children had forgotten an Apple iPad.
The misplaced iPad was discovered because the child's mother began receiving random text messages about the tablet.
According to the lawsuit, she later used Apple's Find My app to track the device location, finding out it'd been left behind in New York City.
She says that the person who took the iPad had logged out of her account, though the photos they took were still being uploaded to the family's Apple iCloud account.
A month later, however, the man uploaded a video of himself masturbating in his work uniform with the name tag visible, with a second explicit video following a few days later, the lawsuit states.
The Brewers also claimed the man had accessed an iTunes account and created his own personal profile, as well as using the stolen iPad to hack into the Brewers' Amazon account.
"We would have hoped, if not publicly, at least personally they would have acknowledged their role and responsibility for what happened to this family," Familoni said, referring to Delta, in an interview this week.
Familoni said the Brewers ultimately filed their lawsuit because Delta 'unfortunately didn’t do that'.
"We hope that Delta will step up and take responsibility, speak to the family, and acknowledge their wrongdoing," the lawyer added.
Stefania Sarrubba