How Should We Handle an Employee Who Deleted Important Data Before Leaving?

Dear Seniors,

One employee of our organization submitted his resignation to management. He also handed over his current assignment and charge to another employee. However, on the last day of his working, he deleted all important data from his computer.

Can we issue a letter to him and ask for an explanation, or should we directly file an FIR at the police station?

All seniors are requested to suggest what action should be taken against the ex-employee. To date, we haven't issued a relieving letter to him.

Thanks,

Sanjay Pawar

Well, we have faced a similar situation too. After that, we ensured that we issued an IT policy. In that policy, we clearly mentioned that the IT department keeps track of the websites visited and can even track the files accessed. Also, daily backups are taken by the IT department. This has helped ensure that employees have a mental block against deleting data.

Looking at the situation practically, it wouldn't be fun writing numerous letters seeking explanations and wasting your time, especially when you have the data. The only thing you can do is wait for his reference check to come in and then point out that such misconduct has been done.

If an employee has deleted the data, you cannot do anything to him unless you can prove the value of the data. An FIR will not help you as the cyber cell and normal police work differently. If you can prove the data has been stolen, the data was critical, and an NDA has been signed with the client, then you have a chance to take action. It also depends on whether the employee has agreed on paper for data loss.

The employee will easily prove data loss occurred after he has left the organization, and the IT department has the login credentials of the system. You are lucky that the employee has not overwritten the data instead of deleting it from the system; otherwise, the recovered data would be of no use.

In order to avoid this situation, take necessary steps because even if the HR department makes policies, it will never work if the employee is technically strong and smart. If he is committed, whatever rules or precautions you apply, data theft and data pilferage will occur. When someone is resigning, the HR personnel and management change their perspective for that employee, and their behavior gets changed.

So immediately start taking a backup of the data for that employee. Also, data backup should not be incremental as this may cause overwriting of the data where the backup is being taken.

When the employee is leaving, let him go, maintain a good relationship as you do not know in the future he might be your boss in some other organization.

Regards