It’s only destruction of evidence if it’s evidence of a crime. You can destroy data for countless reasons that are not crimes, but it might be up to you to show that it’s unrelated to a crime. Most large companies have a data destruction policy for that reason. If it gets called out in court (usually in civil cases), they can point to that policy. The docs weren’t shredded/erased to hide wrongdoing; they just haven’t been used in 24 months and that’s when our policy says to delete.
Warning: IANAL
It’s only destruction of evidence if it’s evidence of a crime. You can destroy data for countless reasons that are not crimes, but it might be up to you to show that it’s unrelated to a crime. Most large companies have a data destruction policy for that reason. If it gets called out in court (usually in civil cases), they can point to that policy. The docs weren’t shredded/erased to hide wrongdoing; they just haven’t been used in 24 months and that’s when our policy says to delete.