the meaning of a part of legislation

Question

I do not understand the meaning of this part of The computer misuse act 1990; Could you please make it clear with an example?

section 2 above shall apply as if anything the accused intended to do or facilitate in any place outside the home country concerned which would be an offence to which section 2 applies if it took place in the home country concerned were the offence in question.

Thanks

Deadrat · Accepted Answer

I took a brief look at the CMA-1990. It criminalizes three things:

Section 1: Computer trespass. You're not allowed unauthorized access to a computer whether you do anything else or not.
Section 2: Committing mischief once you've broken in, like stealing a credit card database password and using it steal credit card numbers.
Section 3: Disrupting computer operations, once you've broken in. Notice that you can commit a Section 2 offense without adversely affecting the services the computer provides others.

Actually, Section 2 is tougher than I've described. You don't actually have to do anything. It's a crime if you intend to do mischief (even if what you intended to do turns out not to have been possible) or if you facilitate mischief, i.e., make it easy for someone else to do the mischief.

Obviously, they have to catch you at a Section 1 offense before they can take you down for a Section 2 or Section 3 offense., and to do that the court has to have what is called territorial jurisdiction, i.e., there must be some link between the home country (one of England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland) indicting you and where the computer is. If you're in London breaking into computers, the computer or the network or the transmission equipment or something must be in England.

The part you quote makes that untrue for Section 2. If you broke into a computer in England and did some mischief, intended some mischief, or facilitated some mischief, it doesn't matter whether that mischief happened in England or not. If the mischief would have been illegal in England, it doesn't matter where it happened. So if you broke into a computer in England and stole a database password that you used outside the country, it doesn't matter. Using the password inside the country would have been illegal, so using the password outside the country is still illegal inside the country.

I'm neither a solicitor nor a barrister, so don't rely on this as legal advice.

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