Trying to avoid antitrust suits, Google systematically told employees to destroy messages, avoid certain words and copy the lawyers as often as possible.
Nah it’s illegal to deliberately destroy data to impede investigations. You don’t need to have an open investigation for that to be the case.
It remains legal to get rid of old files to free up space or if you genuinely believe they aren’t necessary, though, so you need to prove intent.
If there’s a subpeona or something, their destruction is itself a crime, but under this law, its the intent to defraud the courts that’s illegal, and that intent is always illegal.
The law exists specifically for this situation. Purging important business documents preemptively is clearly not OK.
It’s illegal if antitrust action is anticipated, according to the article. That said, I know that most places I’ve worked have had a document retention policy that called for automatic deletion of most documents after some time period, like a year.
I’ve always wondered, is this illegal? Like obviously it is if they’ve already been subpoenaed or something.
Nah it’s illegal to deliberately destroy data to impede investigations. You don’t need to have an open investigation for that to be the case.
It remains legal to get rid of old files to free up space or if you genuinely believe they aren’t necessary, though, so you need to prove intent.
If there’s a subpeona or something, their destruction is itself a crime, but under this law, its the intent to defraud the courts that’s illegal, and that intent is always illegal.
The law exists specifically for this situation. Purging important business documents preemptively is clearly not OK.
Citation: https://legalclarity.org/18-u-s-c-1519-destruction-alteration-or-falsification-of-records/
It’s illegal if antitrust action is anticipated, according to the article. That said, I know that most places I’ve worked have had a document retention policy that called for automatic deletion of most documents after some time period, like a year.
That seems like something that would be difficult to prove.
Unless they’ve received notification to that effect. “Hey, y’all, we’re considering anti-trust so save that shit.”