Short answer: A 2022 report on a Tessian survey said 40% of U.S. employees had taken data when leaving a job. That is a dated, self-reported survey finding—not a current census of all workers, and not proof that 40% stole trade secrets. The wording of the question, who was surveyed and what counted as “data” are not fully documented in the available coverage.
The three statistics that are often confused
Headlines commonly blend results from different years, populations and questions. They should be read separately.
| Figure | What it measures | Source and limitation |
|---|---|---|
| 40% | Employees reportedly took data when leaving a job | 2022 coverage of Tessian research; U.S.-focused employee survey, self-reported and dated |
| 50% | People who had left or lost a job said they retained confidential corporate data | 2013 Symantec/Ponemon study; not the same as proving use or disclosure |
| 40% | Respondents in that 2013 study said they planned to use retained data in a new job | A plan, not evidence that the data was actually used |
| 44% | People who had changed jobs said they took data | Proofpoint’s 2023 State of the Phish result; 44% is only among the job changers in that survey |
| 37% | Organizations’ reported chance of losing intellectual property when an employee quits | Code42’s 2022 survey; an organizational risk estimate, not a worker prevalence rate |
| 12% | Employees taking sensitive intellectual property in investigated cases | DTEX’s 2023 investigation-derived data; not a survey of all departures |
The 2022 Tessian-related report is the source for the headline claim: Betanews’ report on the Tessian survey. The older findings are described by Dark Reading and CIO. Proofpoint’s result appears in its departing-employee research.
Nothing in the available material establishes 40% as a reliable 2026 rate. Vendor-sponsored surveys and investigation reports are useful warning signals, but they are not interchangeable industry measurements.
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The phrase can describe behavior ranging from an accidental copy to deliberate competitive theft. It may include:
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- Copying files to a personal laptop, phone or USB drive.
- Forwarding documents to a private email account or uploading them to personal cloud storage.
- Exporting customer, prospect or professional-contact lists.
- Retaining source code, designs, presentations, spreadsheets, contracts, research or business plans.
- Saving credentials, API keys, authentication tokens or other secrets.
- Printing documents, photographing screens or keeping paper notebooks.
- Uploading work material to a source-code repository, collaboration service or generative-AI tool.
- Keeping a work sample for a résumé or portfolio.
Copying information is not automatically the same as stealing a trade secret, using it for a competitor or exposing regulated personal data. The legal result depends on the material, contracts, company policy, intent and jurisdiction.
Why respondents said they took information
In the Tessian-related coverage, respondents selected several overlapping reasons:
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- 58%: to help themselves in a new job.
- 44%: to share data with a new employer.
- 40%: to make money.
- 53%: they believed that working on a document meant it belonged to them.
These percentages cannot be added together because a respondent could choose more than one reason. The findings also illustrate two different risk patterns. An employee may misunderstand ownership rules or want an approved-looking portfolio example; another may be preparing to compete, profit personally or hand material to a new employer. The report says the survey focused on U.S. employees, but the available article does not provide the full questionnaire, fieldwork date, sample size, recruitment method or a precise definition of “data.” It also does not establish whether contractors, temporary workers or self-employed people were included. Those gaps limit how confidently the 40% can be generalized.
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Why departing-employee data loss matters
Potential harm depends on what left, where it went and what happened next. Exposed information can create:
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- Loss of trade secrets, product strategy or competitive advantage.
- Customer or employee privacy exposure, including health or benefits records.
- Contract violations and disputes over confidentiality or ownership.
- Regulatory investigations, notification duties or fines.
- Litigation involving the former employee or a new employer.
- Credential compromise that enables a later account takeover.
- Business disruption and expensive forensic work.
- Contamination of a new employer’s systems with another company’s confidential material.
Proofpoint’s 2024 Data Loss Landscape release reported that 85% of surveyed organizations experienced data loss in the prior year and 90% of affected organizations reported negative outcomes. Those figures concern data loss generally, not only departures. Its platform telemetry also attributed 87% of anomalous cloud-file exfiltration in a nine-month period to departing employees; that is a share of detected telemetry, not the percentage of all departing workers.
How information leaves the company
A departure review must cover more than email attachments. Common paths include:
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- Personal email, messaging apps and browser uploads.
- USB drives, removable media and personal phones.
- Personal cloud-storage and file-synchronization accounts.
- Source-code repositories and collaboration platforms.
- Printing, screenshots, photographs and handwritten notes.
- Generative-AI services where a user pastes text, code or data into a prompt.
Proofpoint’s 2024 report identifies email, cloud, endpoint and web channels as core parts of a modern data-loss-prevention program and says browsing generative-AI sites had become one of the five most common DLP and insider-threat alert rules among organizations using its platform. Controls should therefore follow the data across channels rather than focus only on a company laptop.
What employers should do
Before anyone gives notice
- State in employment agreements and policies who owns work product and what, if anything, may be retained for a portfolio.
- Classify sensitive information, including customer records, source code, contracts, credentials and personal data.
- Use least-privilege access and keep detailed download, sharing and login logs.
- Apply DLP controls across email, endpoint, cloud, web and removable media, with understandable rules and consistent enforcement.
- Coordinate security, HR, legal and the employee’s manager so the response is proportionate and documented.
When notice is given
- Review the person’s access to high-value systems and identify unusual searches, downloads, file aggregation or uploads.
- Preserve relevant logs and devices before changing or wiping them.
- Decide whether access should be reduced immediately, based on role, notice period and risk.
- Document who approved each action and how privacy and employee-notice requirements will be handled.
On the final day
- Disable accounts at the agreed time.
- Revoke active sessions, VPN access, tokens, API keys and third-party integrations—not just the main password.
- Recover company laptops, phones, removable media and paper files.
- Transfer ownership of cloud files, repositories, mailboxes and shared accounts.
- Obtain confirmation that company information was returned or deleted where appropriate.
- Remind the employee of continuing confidentiality obligations and record what was completed and when.
After departure
- Watch for attempted logins, mailbox access, repository activity and unusual downloads.
- Investigate high-risk alerts and preserve evidence before making destructive changes.
- Consult employment counsel before contacting a former employee or a new employer.
- Notify customers, regulators or law enforcement only when the facts and applicable law require it.
- Do not label conduct “theft” until evidence supports that conclusion.
Security controls involve real trade-offs
- Security versus privacy: Monitoring can find exfiltration but may collect personal information and create legal or employee-relations risk.
- Blocking versus continuity: A blanket ban can disrupt legitimate customer work or an approved portfolio transfer.
- Detection versus prevention: Logs may reveal copying after it happens; aggressive blocking can create false positives.
- Technology versus culture: Training and clear ownership rules address misunderstanding, but they cannot replace access controls.
- Uniformity versus risk-based review: People with access to source code, customer data or financial information may warrant enhanced review.
How to evaluate a statistic about employee data loss
Before repeating a percentage, ask:
- What year was the fieldwork conducted?
- What country or region was covered?
- Is the denominator all employees, only people who changed jobs, or organizations?
- Was the result self-reported survey data, security-platform telemetry or investigated incidents?
- What exactly did “data,” “took” or “lost” mean?
- Was the study sponsored by a security vendor, and is the methodology available?
For example, Proofpoint reported that one-quarter of surveyed users had changed jobs in the prior two years and that 44% of those who left took data. Code42 reported a 37% organizational chance of IP loss when someone quit, while 71% of its respondents lacked visibility into what departing employees took. DTEX reported a 35% increase in departure-related data-theft incidents and 12% taking sensitive IP in its investigated context. Different denominators and methods explain why these figures cannot be averaged into one risk rate.
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Choosing technology without losing the policy work
Organizations considering a DLP or insider-risk platform should first define their data and offboarding process. Relevant capabilities include:
- Coverage for email, endpoints, browsers, cloud storage, SaaS, removable media and source-code systems.
- Integration with HR and identity systems for a documented departing-employee workflow.
- Data classification, sensitivity labels and explainable risk signals.
- Evidence preservation, forensic export, role-based investigator access and configurable retention.
- Controls that distinguish approved portfolio or personal-file transfers from suspicious exfiltration.
- Support for remote and hybrid workers and for immediate token and session revocation.
Examples of enterprise vendors include Proofpoint Information Protection, DTEX Systems, Code42 and Cyberhaven. Their public materials emphasize sales consultations rather than verified self-serve pricing. A product cannot substitute for clear ownership rules, HR coordination, legal review and an evidence-preservation plan.
The defensible conclusion
The statement that “40% of employees take data when leaving a job” is best presented as a 2022, U.S.-focused, self-reported Tessian survey finding as described by Betanews—not as a timeless fact about every workforce. It is useful evidence that departures deserve insider-risk planning, but current prevalence cannot be inferred from it. Employers should distinguish ordinary file retention from malicious misuse, measure their own exposure and combine clear policies with proportionate technical controls and a disciplined offboarding process.
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