Thousands Of PA Government Documents Accidentally Deleted: Officials

PENNSYLVANIA — Thousands of records from at least two Pennsylvania state agencies were deleted due to human error early this month, Office of Administration officials confirmed to Patch Wednesday afternoon.

The files were deleted by mistake on Jan. 3 by an employee who was performing routine server maintenance, according to officials.

Some of the data from the Pennsylvania State Police and State Employee Retirement System has yet to be recovered, according to PennLive, which cited Shapiro Administration officials.

Some of the deleted files include those in an application police use to manage and log evidence submissions as well as data used for the Keystone User Login, officials said.

However, most of the lost files were able to be saved, and "all the physical evidence tracked and cataloged by the [state police] remains secure and was never endangered," the Office of Administration spokesman Dan Egan said in a statement shared with Patch.

"OA took immediate action internally to address this incident and is conducting a thorough review and update of information technology policies, procedures, processes, and controls to prevent this kind of human error from happening again," according to Egan.