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Cybercrimes Act, 2020 (Act No. 19 of 2020)

Chapter 2 : Cybercrimes, Malicious Communications, Sentencing and Orders to Protect Complainants from Harmful Effect of Malicious Communications

Part I : Cybercrimes

3. Unlawful interception of data

 

(1) Any person who unlawfully and intentionally intercepts data, including electromagnetic emissions from a computer system carrying such data, within or which is transmitted to or from a computer system, is guilty of an offence.

 

(2) Any person who unlawfully and intentionally possesses data or the output of data, with the knowledge that such data was intercepted unlawfully as contemplated in subsection (1), is guilty of an offence.

 

(3) Any person who is found in possession of data or the output of data, in regard to which there is a reasonable suspicion that such data was intercepted unlawfully as contemplated in subsection (1) and who is unable to give a satisfactory exculpatory account of such possession, is guilty of an offence.

 

(4) For purposes of this section ‘‘interception of data’’ means the acquisition, viewing, capturing or copying of data of a non-public nature through the use of a hardware or software tool contemplated in section 4(2) or any other means, so as to make some or all of the data available to a person, other than the lawful owner or holder of the data, the sender or the recipient or the intended recipient of that data, and includes the—
(a) examination or inspection of the contents of the data; and
(b) diversion of the data or any part thereof from its intended destination to any other destination.