AngolaPenal Code, Unauthorised Access to an Information System
In force.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not access, without authorisation, all or part of an information system of which you are not the holder.
- Do not defeat a security measure or access a conditional-access ('protegido') service to reach a system without authorisation, which draws a substantially heavier penalty.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 4.1Approaches for mapping AI technology and legal risks of its components – including the use of third-party data or software – are in place, followed, and documented, as are risks of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property or other rights.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Unauthorised access to all or part of an information system draws imprisonment of up to two years or a fine of up to 240 days (Article 438(1)); imprisonment of two to eight years applies where the access defeats a security measure, targets a conditional-access service, exposes a protected secret, or yields an elevated-value benefit (Article 438(2) and (3)).
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Article 438 makes it an offence to access, without authorization, all or part of an information system of which one is not the holder, with a heavier penalty where access is gained by breaching security rules or reaches a conditional-access service. It imposes no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Article 438(1) punishes any person who, without authorisation, accesses all or part of an information system of which they are not the holder, with imprisonment of up to two years or a fine of up to 240 days.
Article 438(2) raises the penalty to imprisonment of two to eight years where the access is achieved by defeating security measures, or is directed at a 'serviço protegido' (a service whose access is conditional on a subscription or other prior individual authorisation, as Lei n.º 7/17 art. 4(a) defines the term).
Article 438(3) applies the same heavier tier where the actor learns a commercial or industrial secret or confidential data protected by law, or obtains a benefit or advantage of elevated value. Article 438(4) extends the base penalty to a person who, without due authorisation, processes individually identifiable data or transmits it to a third party for a purpose other than the one authorised.
Article 437 defines 'sistema informático' broadly as any device or set of interconnected devices that automates the processing of computer data, together with the network supporting communication between them.
The offence draws no distinction based on whether the accessed system or page is public and unauthenticated, so a plain reading exposes web crawling that accesses a system without the holder's authorisation, regardless of whether a technical barrier was defeated, though the enhanced tier under Article 438(2) requires either a security-measure violation or a conditional-access service.
Lei n.º 7/17 (Lei de Protecção das Redes e Sistemas Informáticos) imposes separate security and data-retention duties on network operators, but its own Article 44 states that, for information systems and data, subsidiarily the legal regime provided by the criminal legislation and criminal procedure legislation in force applies, referring unauthorised-access liability back to this Penal Code article rather than creating a second offence.
Lei n.º 38/20's own Article 9 has the Penal Code enter into force ninety days after the Law's publication in the Official Gazette's Diário da República Iª Série n.º 179 of ; no source stating the resulting day has been located.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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