Electronic Transactions Law, Computer Misuse Contraventions

Article 2 applies the Law to natural and legal persons, public or private, that apply information and communication technologies in their activities.

Article 67 lists as contraventions: (a) illegal access to all or part of a computer system or computer network by violating security measures, with intent to obtain data or another dishonest intent; (b) illegal interception, by technical means, of private data transmissions to, from, or within a computer system or network; (c) data interference, meaning the intentional and undue damaging, deletion, deterioration, alteration, or suppression of data; (d) system interference, meaning intentionally affecting the functioning of a computer system or network through the introduction, transmission, damaging, deletion, deterioration, alteration, or suppression of data; and (e) misuse of devices, meaning intentionally and without permission causing another's loss of property through introducing, altering, deleting, or suppressing data or interfering with a computer system's or network's functioning.

Article 68(a) sets the fine for these five contraventions at 40 to 90 times the public-service minimum wage, without prejudice to a more severe penalty under separate criminal legislation. Article 69 gives the sector regulator jurisdiction to process and decide contravention cases, and Article 70 allows direct appeal to the competent judicial court.

On the text of Article 67(a), illegal access requires violating a security measure with an intent to obtain data or another dishonest intent; reading a public, unauthenticated page without defeating a security measure has not itself been held to violate this article.