SeychellesCybercrimes and other Related Crimes Act, 2021, unauthorised access to a computer system
archived copy
Read from a public archive copy, not the publisher directly. The publisher does not serve this page to automated readers, so a direct fetch was not an option here; how we access sources. Archived . Publisher's page: https://seylii.org/akn/sc/act/2021/59/eng@2021-12-20In force since .
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not cause a computer system to perform a function with intent to secure access to computer data you are not entitled to access and have no consent to access.
- Reading a public, unauthenticated page that carries no access control has not itself been held to violate this section.
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 a computer system (s. 4) carries a fine at level 4 of the Standard Scale or imprisonment not exceeding 5 years, or both. Access secured with criminal intent (s. 5), unauthorised interference with computer data (s. 7), and unauthorised interference with a computer system's operation (s. 8) each carry a fine at level 5 of the Standard Scale or imprisonment not exceeding 20 years, or both; the Act's own text does not state the Standard Scale's monetary levels.
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Section 4 creates the offence of causing a computer system to perform a function with intent to secure unauthorised access to computer data, and states no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record. Section 28 gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction over an offence committed partly or wholly abroad only on board a Seychelles ship or aircraft, which is not a hook the vocabulary carries. The Act's Part III investigation powers sit outside this row: section 20 lets an investigatory authority order preservation of computer data, including traffic data, for up to 90 days, extendable by the Court.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
A person who causes a computer system to perform a function with intent to secure unauthorised access to computer data held in it commits an offence, punishable by a fine at level 4 of the Standard Scale or imprisonment not exceeding 5 years, or both.
Access is unauthorised where the person is not entitled to control access of the kind in question and does not have consent from someone who is so entitled; it is immaterial whether the unauthorised access was directed at a particular program, a program or data of any kind, or a program or data held in a particular computer system.
The Act also criminalises access secured with criminal intent (up to 20 years' imprisonment), unauthorised interception, unauthorised interference with computer data or with a computer system's operation, and unlawful possession of illegal devices, each with its own penalty tier.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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