Law / United States / 
Minnesota
Minnesota Unauthorized Computer Access, penetrating a computer security system
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What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.
In force since 1 August 1989.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 29 August 2026.
What it requires
- A public page behind no login, access code, or other computer security system has nothing for you to penetrate under this statute's own terms, though no Minnesota court has confirmed this reading.
- Defeating a login or other technical security measure to access a Minnesota-connected computer system is squarely what this statute targets.
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Subdivision 1 provides that a person is guilty of unauthorized computer access if the person intentionally and without authorization attempts to or does penetrate a computer security system or electronic terminal.
This ties Minnesota's authorization test to circumventing an actual technical security measure rather than a bare access without permission formulation, a meaningfully narrower and more code-centric test than some readings of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA): a plain crawl of a public page behind no security system would not, on the statute's own terms, appear to fall within it.
The enhanced felony and gross-misdemeanor tiers in subdivisions 2 and 3 are keyed specifically to electronic terminal access through opening a panel or access door, reading as aimed at ATM or point-of-sale skimming hardware rather than general network intrusion; the base misdemeanor crime in subdivision 1 is the one of general application to network or web access. No reported Minnesota appellate decision applies this section to scraping or public-page access.
When LexLint raises it
crawls_web
Read the law
official text, Office of the Revisor of Statutes (revisor.mn.gov)
Every line above is drawn from the primary source linked here, read on the date shown. This is a research summary, not legal advice.