TanzaniaCybercrimes Act, 2015, unauthorised access and interference offences
Cybercrimes Act 2015 (Act No. 14 of 2015), ss. 4-9 (illegal access, illegal remaining, illegal interception, illegal data interference, illegal system interference, data espionage)
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://tanzlii.org/akn/tz/act/2015/14/eng@2015-05-22In force since .
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- How the hook was established
- express
- What makes it apply
- User location, Place of effect
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not intentionally and unlawfully access, remain in, or interfere with a computer system, or intercept a non-public transmission, without the operator's authorisation.
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
Private right of actionNo
Criminal exposure note
Illegal access (s. 4) carries a fine of not less than TZS 3,000,000 or three times the undue advantage received, whichever is greater, or imprisonment for a term of not less than one year, or both. Illegal data interference (s. 7) carries a fine of not less than TZS 10,000,000 or three times the undue advantage received, or imprisonment for a term of not less than three years, or both. Data espionage (s. 8) carries a fine of not less than TZS 20,000,000 or three times the undue advantage received, or imprisonment for a term of not less than five years, or both. Sections 4-9 set minimum fines and minimum imprisonment terms rather than a ceiling.
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Sections 4 to 9 make it an offence to access, remain in, intercept, interfere with or spy on a computer system or its data intentionally and unlawfully. They impose no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record; section 7(3) punishes destroying or altering data that is required to be maintained by law but does not itself require any record to be kept. Section 30 reaches an offence committed wholly or in part in Tanzania or directed against a computer system, device, data or person located there; the limb that turns on where the computer sits carries no hook value. Outside the sections this row cites, section 33 lets a police officer in charge of a station order a person in control of a device or computer data to preserve it for up to 14 days, extendable by the court, and section 34 covers disclosure and collection of traffic data.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Section 4 prohibits intentionally and unlawfully accessing or causing a computer system to be accessed, carrying a fine of not less than TZS 3,000,000 or three times the undue advantage received, or imprisonment of not less than one year, or both. Section 5 separately prohibits remaining in a computer system beyond authorised time. Section 6 prohibits illegal interception of non-public transmissions or electromagnetic emissions.
Section 7 prohibits illegal data interference, including damaging, deleting or altering computer data, carrying a fine of not less than TZS 10,000,000 or imprisonment of not less than three years, or both. Section 8 prohibits data espionage, obtaining computer data protected against unauthorised access, carrying imprisonment of not less than five years. Section 9 prohibits illegal system interference, hindering the functioning or usage of a computer system.
Unlike a statute that conditions the illegal-access offence on defeating a security measure, section 4's text requires only that the access be intentional and unlawful, without an express security-circumvention element, and no reported Tanzanian decision has addressed whether reading a public, unauthenticated page without authorisation from the site operator falls within the offence.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web or trains models.
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