I'm seeing this line of thinking a lot, and it's driving me bonkers:
> A private company under investigation that responded to regulators, or a judge, with this sort of explanation rather than producing the requested documents would rightly expect to be handed an adverse judgment or a whopping fine.
Why? Since when is the onus to disprove on the defense and the onus to prove not on the plaintiff? If you suspect a conspiracy to cover up one's tracks, you can go after the defendant additionally for that. But you still have to prove it. I'm not a lawyer but if there is any truth to this statement it is a tarnish on our judicial system. A legal system that convicts based on the possibility of IT problems is hardly reliant on surpassing "reasonable doubt."
She's only referring to your duties to not actively destroy evidence.
If you have a regular expiration cycle for data, that's not a problem, unless you're informed you're being sued or otherwise investigated, at which point it's incumbent for you to turn off that process, and do whatever's necessary to continue to preserve the data.
There are other reasonable things that can trigger the requirement to not destroy data.
The only thing you would be required to prove, if you do lose such data, is that it was entirely accidental, and you didn't have any culpability. Say a tornado destroyed the office with the only set of paper copies, and it was reasonable for you to only have that one set.
> A private company under investigation that responded to regulators, or a judge, with this sort of explanation rather than producing the requested documents would rightly expect to be handed an adverse judgment or a whopping fine.
Why? Since when is the onus to disprove on the defense and the onus to prove not on the plaintiff? If you suspect a conspiracy to cover up one's tracks, you can go after the defendant additionally for that. But you still have to prove it. I'm not a lawyer but if there is any truth to this statement it is a tarnish on our judicial system. A legal system that convicts based on the possibility of IT problems is hardly reliant on surpassing "reasonable doubt."