Law / United States / 
Virginia
Virginia Computer Trespass, malicious intent or deceptive means requirement
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What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.
In force since 1 July 1984.
A computer misuse rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 29 August 2026.
What it requires
- Ordinary, non-disruptive automated access to a Virginia-connected public page does not by itself violate this statute; it requires malicious intent or intentionally deceptive means, plus removing, disabling, altering, or damaging data, programs, software, or operation.
- Intentionally deceptive circumvention of a technical barrier to disable or alter data or programs squarely fits this statute's elements.
- This statute does not override or displace an ordinary contract or license governing your access to a Virginia-connected computer service; ToS enforcement is a separate, civil track.
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Section 18.2-152.4(A) makes it unlawful for any person, with malicious intent or through intentionally deceptive means and without authority, to remove, disable, alter, damage, or otherwise interfere with computer data, programs, software, or operation.
Unlike a bare without-authorization standard (the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)'s, and most peer states' own statutes), this section requires malicious intent or intentionally deceptive means in addition to lack of authority, so ordinary unauthenticated, non-deceptive, non-malicious automated access to a public page that performs none of the listed disruptive acts does not fit the statute's elements at all, regardless of authorization; this makes Virginia's statute narrower and more scraping-favorable on its face than a pure authorization test, though no Virginia case law was found applying it to a scraping or automated-collection fact pattern specifically.
Subsection (C) expressly states the statute is not to be construed to interfere with or prohibit terms or conditions in a contract or license related to computers or computer services, preserving ordinary contract law as the separate track for ToS enforcement; no Virginia case addresses browsewrap versus clickwrap for a scraping dispute specifically.
When LexLint raises it
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Read the law
official text, Virginia Law (law.lis.virginia.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.