Spoliation
The intentional or negligent destruction, alteration, or failure to preserve evidence relevant to a legal proceeding. Deleting data under an active legal hold, even through routine automated deletion, can constitute spoliation and carries real legal sanctions, including adverse inference instructions.
Defined in 2 GAGE programs, which carry 3 distinct definitions of it. The wording above is taught in AI Data Governance: The Data Chair.
How each discipline defines it
The same term does different work depending on who is using it. These are the definitions as each program teaches them, unedited.
The intentional or negligent destruction, alteration, or failure to preserve evidence relevant to a legal proceeding. Deleting data under an active legal hold, even through routine automated deletion, can constitute spoliation and carries real legal sanctions, including adverse inference instructions.
The destruction or alteration of evidence after it is or should be preserved, which is treated severely by courts and regulators. The reason a reconstruction gap must be closed by designing new records going forward, never by editing or remaking records of past decisions.
The destruction or loss of evidence a party had a duty to preserve, which courts may punish with adverse inferences or default judgment.
Where it is taught
The exact lessons this term appears in. The first 7 topics of every program are free with a free account.
- The deletion decision: the terabytes your organization should destroy this quarter, defended · The Money of Data, AI Data Governance: The Data Chair
- The retention decision: what you must keep, what you must destroy, and proving both · Data Reality, AI Governance: Applied Mastery
- Evidence is designed, not gathered: building systems whose proof exists before anyone asks · Evidence Engineering, AI Governance: Applied Mastery
Terms it appears with
Not an alphabetical neighbourhood: these are the terms taught in the same lessons, ranked by how often they appear together.