icloud activity folder shows pictures but then is empty when i open it

I have a friend that seems to have pictures that he should no longer have. I can't tell for sure though what is going on. When I go on his windows 8 PC into documents and then into "icloud photos" there are two folders...one called "photo stream" and the other is "Activity". The photo stream folder opens up and shows me all the pictures, HOWEVER the activity folder from the outside shows the little pictures of what would be inside (which are the ones that should be gone) but when I open the folder...nothing comes up. Nothing at all. I try to right-click on the folder to delete the entire thing...again nothing. So basically you can see all the photos from the outside, but when going in it appears "empty". is there a reason for this?