Código Penal, art. 153 bis, unauthorized access to a restricted computer system or data
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
In force since 25 June 2008.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 5 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not access a computer system or data of restricted access without due authorization, or by exceeding the authorization held.
- Reading a public, unauthenticated page that carries no access-control barrier has not itself been shown to violate this article.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionNo
Criminal exposure note
Fifteen days to six months' imprisonment, rising to one month to one year when the accessed system or data belongs to a state public body or a public-services or financial-services provider (art. 153 bis); the offense carries imprisonment only, with no fine.
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Article 153 bis punishes with fifteen days to six months' imprisonment, if the act is not a more severely punished offense, a person who knowingly accesses, by any means, without due authorization or exceeding the authorization held, a computer system or data of restricted access. The penalty rises to one month to one year's imprisonment when the access harms a system or data belonging to a state public body or a public-services or financial-services provider.
Because the offense's own text requires the system or data to be one 'de acceso restringido' (of restricted access), a plain reading does not reach reading a public, unauthenticated page that carries no access-control barrier such as a password, permission, or authentication requirement; no reported Argentine decision testing that reading against a web-scraping fact pattern was located.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_webtrains_models
Read the law
Official consolidated text of the Código Penal, InfoLEG (Ministerio de Justicia y Derechos Humanos)