Law / United States / 
Louisiana
Louisiana Computer Tampering, unauthorized access and exceeding authorization
In force since .
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Access restriction
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not access, or cause to be accessed, a Louisiana-connected computer, computer system, or computer network without the authorization of its owner, including access that intentionally exceeds the scope of authorization you were given.
- If a computer's owner has issued a confidential or proprietary access code, do not use a code issued to someone else; doing so creates a rebuttable presumption that your access was unauthorized or exceeded authorization.
- Copying or otherwise obtaining a program or data without the owner's authorization is itself a violation, separate from damaging or destroying anything; a more severe penalty tier applies where the conduct damages, destroys, or is intended to disrupt vital state, local, or utility services.
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.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-09Information Security
- GAI-RISK-12Value Chain and Component Integration
- OWASP LLM Top 10
- LLM03:2026Excessive Agency
- OWASP Agentic Top 10
- ASI03Identity and Privilege Abuse
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-018Agent Authority Least Privilege Framework
- AIR-PREV-023Agentic System Credential Protection Framework
- ETSI EN 304 223
- 5.1.2-6Access the AI system gets to other systems and data sources is minimal and risk assessed.
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
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
A misdemeanor (fine up to $500, imprisonment up to six months, or both) for unauthorized access or copying alone; a felony (fine up to $10,000, imprisonment with or without hard labor up to five years, or both) where the conduct damages or destroys a computer or its data; and an enhanced felony (fine up to $10,000, imprisonment at hard labor up to fifteen years, or both) where the damage or destruction is intended to disrupt vital state, parish, municipal, or utility services, or to cause death or great bodily harm.
Who enforces it
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does R.S. 14:73.7's 'without the authorization of the owner' element reach ordinary, non-deceptive automated collection of a public, unauthenticated web page that no confidential or proprietary access code protects?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
La. R.S. 14:73.7 defines the offence of computer tampering, treats actions that intentionally exceed the limits of authorization as unauthorized (subsection B(1)) and sets the penalties. It imposes no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record, and it states no territorial clause, so no hook is recorded.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Computer tampering under R.S. 14:73.7 is the intentional, knowing commission, without the authorization of the owner of a computer, of accessing or causing to be accessed a computer or any part of it, copying or otherwise obtaining a program or data, damaging or destroying a computer or its data, or introducing electronic information with the intent to damage or destroy.
Actions taken without authorization expressly include actions that intentionally exceed the limits of authorization, and using a confidential or proprietary access code that was not issued to the person creates a rebuttable presumption that the access was unauthorized or exceeded authorization.
Penalties are tiered: access or copying alone (paragraphs (A)(1) and (2)) is punishable by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, imprisonment for not more than six months, or both; damage or destruction (paragraphs (A)(3) and (4)) by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars, imprisonment with or without hard labor for not more than five years, or both; and damage or destruction intended to disrupt vital state, local, or utility services, or to cause death or great bodily harm, by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars, imprisonment at hard labor for not more than fifteen years, or both.
Enacted by Acts 2001, No. 829, section 1.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web.
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