Dallas IT worker accidentally erased 20TB data of Police Case Files

Dallas Police files have been accidentally erased by an IT worker, and the data that is lost is around 20TB and is a massive blow for the Dallas Police Department. Although there isn’t any evidence that the technician has deleted the data with a criminal motive or using a malicious act.

This incident of deletion happened last year and the investigation report is now released.

Did the Dallas IT worker do it intentionally?

As per the report, it is said the Dallas IT worker had lacked enough training to do the job and hence the deletion has occurred. The Dallas IT worker’s job was to focus on Commvault, a software company that Dallas city has a contract with for cloud storage management. The technician has taken the training on the software only twice since 2018. This report was released by Kirkland & Ellis, the law firms associated with this investigation.

As per the technician’s confession, he had deleted the archive files without double checking if there was a backup for those data. After detailed investigation and scrutinization of the network and the technician’s log files, it is decided that the deletion of the 20TB was a mistake and not because of any criminal motive.

Eight million archive deleted by the Dallas IT Worker

The Dallas IT worker was fired for his mistake of erasing 20TB of data that was composed of 8 million archive police videos, photos, audio, case notes and more. Most of them are crucial evidence gathered by the family violence unit. The report also stated that the data lost will not impact Dallas County District Attorney majorly and it will only reduce the pace of some prosecutions.

“Since family violence offenders have a high recidivism rate and often commit crimes of violence, the lost archived evidence may be useful in future cases or be needed to maintain a conviction in the appeal of a case” said the investigation report. The investigation is completed after four months of the case being handed over to Kirkland& Ellis, with U.S.Attorney Erin Nealy Cox heading the investigation.

As per the report, 28 people were investigated for the case, including members of the city’s police and IT departments. The law firm also found that the technician had been making this mistake for more than 2 months, since it was publicly identified on August 11, 2021.

Situations like these should be expected, which is why policies, protocols and procedures have to be coined to ensure the critical files are always stored in more than one place with proper backups.

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