MauritiusCybersecurity and Cybercrime Act 2021, unauthorised access offences
In force since .
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not gain unauthorised access to any program or data held in a computer system, that is, access you are not entitled to control and have not been authorised to make.
- Reading a public, unauthenticated page without defeating any access control has not been confirmed either way against this section by a Mauritian court.
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
A fine not exceeding 1,000,000 rupees and penal servitude for a term not exceeding 10 years on conviction (s. 7(1)). Unauthorised modification of computer data under section 11, a related but separate offence, carries the same fine but penal servitude of up to 20 years (s. 11(1)-(2)).
Penalty structure
Fine only under section 7(1); the same subsection also allows penal servitude of up to 10 years for the unauthorised-access offence. Section 11, a separate offence of unauthorised modification of computer data, carries the same fine but penal servitude of up to 20 years.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- MUR
- Fixed cap
- 1,000,000
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Section 7 makes it an offence to gain unauthorised access to any program or data held in a computer system, with a fine and up to ten years' penal servitude, and sections 8 to 13 cover interception, interference, misuse of devices and related acts. None requires a log or record. Section 50(2) extends the Intermediate Court's jurisdiction to an offence under the Act committed outside Mauritius only on a Mauritian ship or aircraft, which is a flag test and not one of the territorial hooks in the vocabulary, so the hook is empty.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Section 7 makes it an offence for a person to gain unauthorised access to any program or data held in a computer system, carrying a fine of up to 1,000,000 rupees and penal servitude of up to 10 years. Access is unauthorised where the person is not entitled to control access of that kind and has not been authorised by someone who is. A related offence, unauthorised modification of computer data under section 11, carries the same fine but penal servitude of up to 20 years.
The Act repealed and replaced the Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act 2003, defining the unauthorised-access offence in substantially the same terms; because the trigger is unauthorised access rather than defeating a security measure, whether reading a public, unauthenticated page without any such access falls within the offence has not been tested by a Mauritian court.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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