We back up data to prevent a situation where the original files are the only copy and they get lost, accidentally deleted, or some hardware issue causes it to no longer be accessible. However, what happens when you delete the backup? Well, for the Dallas Police Department, that’s what happened.
Apparently, during a routine data migration in April, a city employee accidentally deleted 8TB worth of data. 8TB is basically 8,000GB. So if it happened in April, why are we only hearing about it now? Well, it took this long before it was disclosed, with the city mayor and district attorney’s office both claiming that they just found out about it. I’m sure.
These files had images, videos, audio, case notes, and other items that the police department had collected over the course of their daily duties. It is believed that as a result, it could throw several court cases into jeopardy as they will no longer have access to the materials they might need for their cases. This has huge ramifications for those cases.
In fact, a report from the Associated Press claims that a man named Jonathan Pitts has been released on bond after being on trial for murder. This is because authorities are worried that the evidence related to his case could be part of that deleted data. It pays to back up that data people.
Source Ubergizmo