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As others have stated for legal liability purposes. If you werent legally required to store documents or there is a limitation on length, you wouldn't want to

As others have stated for legal liability purposes. If you werent legally required to store documents or there is a limitation on length, you wouldn't want to continue to store those records. I work alongside hospital radiology systems. Large organizations only keep what's required and are looking to purge all else (like deleting mammos after 15 years, pediatrics after 21... Requirements vary state to state in USA). So if a patient comes suing you with a malpractice in the future, they can say they no longer have the records (as they only kept till legally required). I doubt they would win a case solely on this but would definately help them. A vendor created a cloud archive solution for reports/images, with unlimited retention. Customers (hospital organizations) are demanding features for purging data aka "retention management". So I bet this happens in all industries/businesses

zaphar 5y ago
There is more to the liability than just the threat of malpractice. Holding data of a sensitive nature means you might accidentally leak that data. The more you hold the worse the leak is. Being able to delete that data enables you to somewhat control the blast radius of a leak.
nieve 5y ago
It's not just the non-police record holder's own liability, it's very common to be subpoenaed over a case you're not party to and those can easily turn into expensive fishing expeditions. No excuse for the cops and pretty clearly those requests can be entirely legit, but there are other organizations that have financial reasons to see old records as a liability. One employer that got massive numbers of subpoenas had a business requirement forbidding audit trails and logging because as soon as a lawyer saw any sign of logging they'd go digging. We were never sued, we were just a convenient source of legal ammunition.

zaphar 5y ago

There is more to the liability than just the threat of malpractice. Holding data of a sensitive nature means you might accidentally leak that data. The more you hold the worse the leak is. Being able to delete that data enables you to somewhat control the blast radius of a leak.

nieve 5y ago

It's not just the non-police record holder's own liability, it's very common to be subpoenaed over a case you're not party to and those can easily turn into expensive fishing expeditions. No excuse for the cops and pretty clearly those requests can be entirely legit, but there are other organizations that have financial reasons to see old records as a liability. One employer that got massive numbers of subpoenas had a business requirement forbidding audit trails and logging because as soon as a lawyer saw any sign of logging they'd go digging. We were never sued, we were just a convenient source of legal ammunition.