Penal Code Act, 2010, Misuse of Property of Another
Penal Code Act, 2010 (Act No. 6 of 2012), s. 62
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 9 March 2012.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 7 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not extract information from a computer or electronic storage device owned by another person where you have no reasonable cause to believe the owner would allow that extraction.
- Do not interfere with a computer or electronic storage device owned by another, or the data or programmes on it, without the owner's consent, if you intend to secure an advantage for yourself or cause damage.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Section 62(2) makes the conduct an offence, but the section is not listed in the Code's penalty Schedule; under section 109(3) the court imposes whatever penalty another law provides for the offence, or, failing that, a penalty the court thinks fit given the offence's gravity and the Sentencing Guidelines issued by the Chief Justice, rather than a fixed fine or imprisonment cap stated in the Code itself.
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 62(2) makes it an offence for a person who either lawfully or unlawfully gains access to a computer or electronic storage device owned by another to (a) extract from it information which he or she has no reasonable cause to believe the owner would allow to be extracted, or (b) interfere with the device or the information it contains, without the owner's consent and with no reasonable ground to believe such consent would be given, intending to secure an advantage for themselves or cause damage to the electronic data or programmes.
The offence is framed around the owner's likely consent to the extraction rather than around defeating a technical access control, so its application to a person who reads or collects data from a genuinely public, unauthenticated web page, where the owner has made the content available to any visitor, is unsettled; no reported Lesotho case construes section 62 in that context.
Section 62 is not among the sections listed in the Code's penalty Schedule, so under section 109(3) a court convicting a person under section 62 imposes such penalty as another law provides or, absent one, such penalty as it thinks fit having regard to the offence's gravity and the Sentencing Guidelines issued by the Chief Justice, rather than a fixed statutory cap.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_webtrains_models