MaltaCriminal Code Article 337C, Unlawful Access to, or Use of, Information
Criminal Code (Cap. 9), Art. 337C
In force.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Confirm you have authorisation from whoever is entitled to control access to a computer, data, or software before accessing, copying, or extracting it in Malta; acting without such authorisation under Article 337C of the Criminal Code is a criminal offence whether or not a login otherwise protects the resource.
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
Who enforces it
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does a person who retrieves pages that the operator serves to the public without any login act 'without authorisation' under Article 337C(2)(a), when no entitled person has given or refused permission to that person?
- Does the retrieval and copying of data from a public website amount to using a computer to 'access any data' or to 'copy' it under Article 337C(1)(a) and (c), where the operator forbids automated access in its terms but applies no technical barrier?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Article 337C makes it an offence to access, use, copy, output, hinder or modify data, software or systems without authorisation. It imposes no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Article 337C of the Criminal Code makes it an offence for a person, without authorisation, to access, use, copy, output, prevent or hinder access to, install, alter, or otherwise deal with data, software, or supporting documentation held in a computer, among the acts the article enumerates in paragraphs (a) to (l). A person acts without authorisation if they are not duly authorised by an entitled person, and an entitled person is one entitled to control the activities the article defines.
Whether a use is authorised turns on whether the actor was permitted by whoever is entitled to control the resource. The general penalty for contravening this article is set out in Article 337F.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web.
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