Law / United States / Massachusetts
Unauthorized access to a computer system; penalties
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 266, § 120F
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.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 6 September 2026.
What it requires
- Do not access a computer system without authorization, and stop accessing it once you know your access is no longer authorized.
- A password or other authentication requirement is itself notice that access is limited to authorized users, so bypassing or ignoring one exposes you under this section.
- A public page requiring no password or authentication raises no exposure under this section by itself.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Punishable by imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than 30 days, a fine of not more than $1,000, or both.
Penalty structure
Fixed criminal fine cap; the section separately authorizes up to 30 days' imprisonment in the house of correction, alone or together with the fine.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- 6 September 2026
- Currency
- USD
- Fixed cap
- 1,000
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Whoever, without authorization, knowingly accesses a computer system by any means, or after gaining access by any means knows that access is not authorized and fails to terminate it, is punished by up to 30 days in the house of correction, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.
The section states that a password or other authentication requirement itself constitutes notice that access is limited to authorized users, the same authorization-gate reasoning the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)'s federal case law uses, so a public, unauthenticated page raises no exposure under this section on the same logic. The codified text carries no session-law citation or amendment history showing a specific commencement day.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_web
Read the law
official text, Massachusetts General Laws, malegislature.gov