Law / United States / South Dakota
South Dakota Unlawful Use of a Computer System, Software, or Data
SDCL §§ 43-43B-1 to 43-43B-3, 43-43B-7, 43-43B-8
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, or exceed authorized access to, a South Dakota-connected computer system, software, or data without the consent of the owner; this chapter turns on consent rather than on a technical access barrier, so it reaches ordinary unauthenticated automated access as well as authenticated access.
- Do not copy or obtain information from a computer system, compromise its security controls, or use or disclose access codes or passwords, without the owner's consent; violating this is a Class 6 felony.
- Do not disrupt, deny, or inhibit access to software, data, or a computer system, or modify, change, alter, destroy, or disable software, data, or a computer system, without the owner's consent; these acts carry felony exposure up to a Class 2 felony (up to twenty-five years and a $50,000 fine) where the access is also part of a deceptive scheme to obtain money, property, or services.
- This chapter does not itself create a private civil cause of action for a violation, but it also does not limit or diminish one that exists independently under other law.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionNo
Criminal exposure note
Grading under SDCL § 43-43B-3 tracks the nine acts listed in § 43-43B-1: bare unauthorized access or use (subd. (1)) is a Class 1 misdemeanor (up to one year in a county jail or a $2,000 fine, or both); accessing confidential data, or copying, compromising, or disclosing access codes (subds. (2)-(3)), is a Class 6 felony (up to two years or a $4,000 fine, or both); disrupting, denying, or inhibiting access to software or data (subd. (4)) is a Class 5 felony (up to five years and a $10,000 fine); disrupting access to a computer system, or modifying software or data (subds. (5)-(6)), is a Class 4 felony (up to ten years and a $20,000 fine); destroying or disabling a computer system, software, or data (subds. (8)-(9)) is a Class 3 felony (up to fifteen years and a $30,000 fine); and deceptive unauthorized access to obtain money, property, or services (subd. (7)) is a Class 2 felony (up to twenty-five years and a $50,000 fine).
Penalty structure
Ceiling for the top tier, a Class 2 felony under SDCL § 43-43B-3(6) for deceptive unauthorized access to obtain money, property, or services; lower tiers carry lower caps, tabulated in criminal_exposure_note.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- 6 September 2026
- Currency
- USD
- Fixed cap
- 50,000
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
SDCL § 43-43B-1 makes it unlawful for a person to knowingly access, or exceed authorized access to, copy or obtain information from, disrupt or deny access to, or modify or destroy a computer system, software, or data, in each case without the consent of the owner; ordinary automated access to a page the operator has made generally available is not itself addressed by any reported South Dakota decision.
Section 43-43B-3 grades the nine listed acts from a Class 1 misdemeanor up to a Class 2 felony depending on which act was committed and, for the top tier, whether it was done as part of a deceptive scheme to obtain money, property, or services; § 43-43B-7 states that the chapter neither creates nor forecloses a private civil claim over the same conduct.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_web
Read the law
official codified text, South Dakota Legislature (sdlegislature.gov)