Law note · Utah
Utah Computer Crimes Act (unauthorized access, with an express implied-consent definition)
What it asks of an app
- Ordinary access to a public, unrestricted page is plausibly impliedly authorized under this statute's own definition, absent a revocation event, though no Utah court has confirmed this reading.
- Once access is without authorization or exceeds authorization, copying, transmitting, or disclosing computer data you accessed that way falls within this statute's plain text.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_web
What we found
Section 76-6-703(2)(a) reaches a person who, without authorization or in excess of authorization, accesses or attempts to access computer technology where that access results in the alteration, damage, destruction, copying, transmission, discovery, or disclosure of computer technology, and computer technology expressly includes computer data, so unauthorized copying of scraped data falls within the statute's plain text once without or exceeding authorization is shown.
Section 76-6-702(2) defines authorization as the express or implied consent or permission of the owner to access a computer in a manner not exceeding that consent, and this express recognition of implied consent textually supports treating ordinary access to a public, unrestricted page as impliedly authorized absent a revocation event, though no Utah court has confirmed this reading.
Both provisions were confirmed against Utah's own official code site; Section 76-6-703 carries an effective date of May 3, 2023 on its own page.