UK Parliament / Open data

Police and Justice Bill

I intended to ask another question on Amendment No. 193A. I hope the Minister will not mind. This is about Section 2 of the Computer Misuse Act. I find it very difficult to understand why a person guilty of an offence in England and Wales under subsection (5) is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months, but, on summary conviction in Scotland for the same offence, is liable to a term not exceeding six months. I wanted to know precisely why there was this difference. The second point I wanted to talk about, following the argument used by the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, was on Amendments Nos. 193A and 193B. We were talking about computer hacking. The government amendment talks about Section 5 of the Computer Misuse Act, which says, "““that any computer containing any program or data to which the accused secured or intended to secure unauthorised access by doing that act was in the home country concerned at that time””." That is as far as England and Wales are concerned. I suspect it also applies to the sheriffdom in Scotland. There are cases of computer hacking going on at international level. Is the Act simply restricted to what happens when a person is in this country, or does it apply internationally as well?

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

684 c693-4 

Session

2005-06

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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