What Is The Computer Misuse Act?

Date First Published: 20th August 2023

Topic: Computer Systems

Subtopic: Legislation & User Data Protection

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 4/10

CONTENTS

Offences
Police and Justice Act 2006

Learn about what the Computer Misuse Act is in this article.

The Computer Misuse Act (CMA) is a piece of legislation that was introduced in 1990 to protect against unauthorised access, theft, modification, and damage to personal information and data stored using IT systems. This legislation mostly covers hacking and spreading viruses. The popular usage of IT systems has led to misuse of computers, including hacking and spreading viruses to do harm, and this piece of legislation helps deal with these issues.

A key part of this legislation is that the intent must be proved. For example, if a computer is not well protected, it makes it easy for someone to accidentally access and modify its data without meaning to. For anyone to be found guilty, it must be proved that they intentionally accessed and modified data.

Offences

The four offences that are covered in this act include:

Offence 1 - Unauthorised access to computer material. This refers to accessing a computer system without permission (hacking). This can be punished by a fine of up to £5000 and/or up to 2 years imprisonment.
Offence 2 - Unauthorised access with intent to commit further offences. This includes using the data obtained to blackmail someone or commit fraud (e.g. purchasing items in someone else's name without their permission). This can be punished by an unlimited fine and/or up to 5 years imprisonment.
Offence 3 - Unauthorised access with the intent to damage the operation of a computer. This includes spreading a virus which corrupts or deletes data or prevents access to a computer. This can be punished by an unlimited fine and/or up to 10 years imprisonment.
Offence 3a - Making, supplying or obtaining anything which can be used in computer misuse offences. This includes spreading a malware program that could be used to harm data or gain unauthorised access. This can be punished by an unlimited fine and/or up to 2 years imprisonment.

Police and Justice Act 2006

The Police and Justice Act extended the Computer Misuse Act by adding an additional offence (Offence 3a) to the legislation. It also made modifications to Offence 1 so that the maximum punishment increased from 6 months to 2 years imprisonment. It also made modifications to Offence 3 so that it covered Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.