Electronic Transactions Act, Cyber Offences
Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772), ss. 124, 130-134 (Cyber Offences)
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 19 December 2008.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 4 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not access or intercept an electronic record without authority or permission, whether or not the record sits behind a login.
- Do not cause a computer to perform any function to secure access to a programme or electronic record without authority.
- Do not access, or exceed authorised access to, a computer holding financial, government, or national-security information; this carries the Act's highest penalty tier.
- Do not disclose a password or access code, or modify a programme or electronic record, without authority.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
The base unauthorised-access offences (ss. 124, 130) each carry a fine of not more than two thousand five hundred penalty units or imprisonment of not more than five years, or both. Unauthorised disclosure of an access code (s. 132) and the aggravated offence of accessing a protected computer (s. 133) each carry a fine of not more than ten thousand penalty units or imprisonment of not more than twenty years, or both, which is the Act's highest tier for any offence in this Part.
Penalty structure
Sections 132 (unauthorised disclosure of an access code) and 133 (accessing a protected computer without authorisation) each carry the highest fixed fine in this Part, ten thousand penalty units, alongside imprisonment of not more than twenty years. The base offences of unauthorised access or interception (s. 124) and unauthorised access to a computer programme or electronic record (s. 130) carry two thousand five hundred penalty units and imprisonment of not more than five years. One penalty unit equals twelve Ghana cedis under the Fines (Penalty Units) Act, 2000 (Act 572), as recorded by the Ghana Revenue Authority, making the ten-thousand-unit ceiling one hundred twenty thousand Ghana cedis.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- 4 September 2026
- Currency
- GHS
- Fixed cap
- 10,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Ghana Police Service, prosecuted before the ordinary criminal courts
What it reaches
Obligation class
Access restriction, Security
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Section 124 punishes a person who intentionally accesses or intercepts an electronic record without authority or permission. Section 130 punishes a person who knowingly and without authority causes a computer to perform any function to secure access to a programme or electronic record held in that computer or any other computer, and section 131 punishes an unauthorized modification of a programme or electronic record.
Section 133 creates an aggravated offence, whoever knowingly accesses a computer without authorisation or exceeds authorised access to a protected computer, one holding information from a financial institution, a government department, a national-security matter, or otherwise designated protected, and carries the Act's highest tier. Section 134 punishes intentionally causing a computer to cease to function, including by virus or worm.
None of these provisions exempts a publicly accessible, unauthenticated page from the definition of unauthorized access, which the Act defines as access a person is neither personally entitled to nor has been given consent to obtain.
When LexLint raises it
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