Databus Issue: 2006 4 10/17/2006
Best Practices: Save That Hard Drive for One Year and One Day
Philip Scrivano Management Analyst
PDF
A common theme I have learned in districts and county offices of education is the problems caused by employees who have left the employment of the district or COE and later claim that something happened or the employee is blamed for something after they are gone.
The computer the person used while employed is often re-imaged and put in to service for another employee. In this scenario, it is possible to recover data if the computer can be located, but the data recovered looses a lot of credibility.
Hard drives are relatively cheap today. I recommend that when an employee leaves the employment of the institution that the IT department is charged with securing the hard drive, labeling it, and storing it in a safe or bank safety deposit box for a minimum of one year and one day.
In larger districts, this may not be practical because of the number of employees that are hired and who leave. In this case, let the human resources department determine which hard drives need to be stored. Any employee leaving the institution for other than job promotions or retirement should be tagged to have the computer hard drive they used stored by the IT department.
If questions arise about a past employee, forensic research can be done that will stand up in a court of law and protect the institution and/or the employee from false allegations.
