Just checked my state’s law. It specifies “intentionally” destroying the evidence. If you have it set up to do it after a certain amount of inactivity, your intent is not to destroy evidence. By all means a corrupt judicial system or police force could still abuse it. But it shouldn’t be illegal (at least in my state).
It’s only destruction of evidence if it’s evidence of a crime. You can destroy data for countless reasons that are not crimes, but it might be up to you to show that it’s unrelated to a crime. Most large companies have a data destruction policy for that reason. If it gets called out in court (usually in civil cases), they can point to that policy. The docs weren’t shredded/erased to hide wrongdoing; they just haven’t been used in 24 months and that’s when our policy says to delete.
deleted by creator
Just checked my state’s law. It specifies “intentionally” destroying the evidence. If you have it set up to do it after a certain amount of inactivity, your intent is not to destroy evidence. By all means a corrupt judicial system or police force could still abuse it. But it shouldn’t be illegal (at least in my state).
Warning: IANAL
It’s only destruction of evidence if it’s evidence of a crime. You can destroy data for countless reasons that are not crimes, but it might be up to you to show that it’s unrelated to a crime. Most large companies have a data destruction policy for that reason. If it gets called out in court (usually in civil cases), they can point to that policy. The docs weren’t shredded/erased to hide wrongdoing; they just haven’t been used in 24 months and that’s when our policy says to delete.