Codigo Penal Article 197 bis, Unauthorized Access to an Information System
Ley Organica 10/1995 de 23 de noviembre, del Codigo Penal, art. 197 bis, added by Ley Organica 1/2015, de 30 de marzo, art. unico.107 (BOE-A-1995-25444, BOE-A-2015-3439)
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 1 July 2015.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 2 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not circumvent a technical security measure, such as authentication, to access an information system without authorization; Article 197 bis does not reach access to a page that carries no such measure.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Imprisonment of six months to two years for unauthorized access achieved by vulnerating a security measure, or for remaining against the will of the person entitled to exclude the actor (art. 197 bis.1); imprisonment of three months to two years or a three-to-twelve-month fine for unauthorized interception of non-public data transmissions to, from, or within an information system (art. 197 bis.2).
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Accessing or facilitating access to all or part of an information system, or remaining in it against the will of whoever has the legitimate right to exclude the actor, is a crime carrying six months to two years' imprisonment, but only where the actor breaches security measures established to prevent that access and lacks due authorization.
Intercepting non-public data transmissions to, from, or within an information system by technical means, without authorization, carries a separate penalty of three months to two years' imprisonment or a fine. Because the offense in the first paragraph requires vulnerating an established security measure, accessing a page with no access control in place, the ordinary case of public-web crawling, does not fall within Article 197 bis on the text of the article alone.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_web