Penalmente Relevant (Oct 2021)
Considerații tehnice și juridice privind reținerea infracțiunii de acces ilegal la un sistem informatic în situația interogării unei baze de date prin depășirea limitelor autorizării
Abstract
Along with the digitalisation within the public institutions and authorities, as well as within the organisations that process large quantities of electronic information (financial and banking institutions, insurance companies, providers of utilities or services, medical care institutions, universities, etc.), also emerged the temptation of a “informational advantage” – a concept that may be seen as the desire to learn or to obtain any kind of data related to other persons, but exceeding the general or special legal framework that may allow the processing or the manipulation of such data by legal entities or individuals. Because this kind of information exists in electronic form and is usually aggregated in databases stored on computer systems, it is important to clarify in which extent an authorized access to a such a computer system may become illegal when an individual is acting with the intent of obtaining or processing information from a database, not in the fulfilment of its official duties but in a private interest, for himself or another individual. Although somehow divided, the jurisprudence shows a predisposition to make use of the criminal offence of “illegal access to a computer system, by exceeding the limits of authorisation”. The author argues that such an approach is questionable due to several reasons, both technical and legal. Thus, the purpose of this article is to clarify the issue in question in order to be able to identify feasible and reasoned solutions, compatible with the fundamental principles of criminal law.
