Since anyone can put anything they want on their servers, it seems like a lot of evidence could be thrown out in court cases if access to that information is not strictly monitored and audited to make sure the owners aren’t removing or adding data.
Does anyone know of industry-standard practices to ensure that data on servers is not being manipulated in a way to protect or harm users?
I don’t know about it being a big risk, it really depends.
Look at Enron - they shredded (I believe literally) tons of documents.
There’s a penalty for destroying such things, but you’d really have to prove what it was for the worst penalties. Better in Enron’ s perspective to prevent the bigger issue, and shred the evidence that would certainly convict their C-suite.
Yeah for large corporations like Enron and their C-suites the rules are a bit different, but if its not some rich corpo exec then there are usually consequences. They might get away with the original crime but charged instead with obstructing or worse, they might still be convicted on the first thing plus an obstruction charge.