[UseStrict]

Agreed, regardless of whether the rep can see it or not, they should be trained properly and reply that they no longer have access to the data, and that access would require an escalation of some sort. To simply say the data is gone is a straight up lie.

[dkonofalski]

A lie is a falsehood that's meant to deceive someone. A rep saying the data is gone because, functionally, it is is not a lie. If the intent is to set proper expectations with a customer then I think telling them it's gone and potentially being able to say "actually, we were able to recover it by escalating it" is better than "we may be able to recover it by escalating the issue" because you're underpromising and overdelivering. The opposite just sets you and the customer for failure.