If it wasn’t this issue it would have been something else, like getting up at the coffee shop and having your laptop stolen.
First you have to know that utility exists. Will most biology students know about Windows Backup? I doubt it. Even if they do, they're using a college administered PC. Backups are not their concern. They probably won't have permission to set it up even if they want to. In the article the staff member doesn't have permission to install the applications they need on their desktop PC.
I've had cloud providers nuke my disk intentionally, then demand I upgrade $$$ to get access to backup.
Backups do fail, get corrupted or are incomplete.
Lots of this data is not trivially copyable or even obvious to find.
Nevertheless, data inevitably gets erased. It's part of the data management lifecycle. If data is non-trivial to backup or obvious to find, it must not be very valuable to those who own the data. Think about it.
Not deleting data, you might even become criminally liable, according to privacy laws like GDPR.
So while this stuff isn't as clear-cut, stable and easy as it should be (we agree there), people must keep their data with them, if the data is valuable to them.
I don't see any way forward laying blame on others for the rest of one's life. That's no way to live.
This is why one implements data and IT governance.
Ownership is with the user.
However, it can be profitable to not undo the mistake, and the workers have no say what is negotiated in the contract.