Content area
Full Text
Abstract:
The crime of illegal interception of a computer data transmission is provided in the Article 361 of the Romanian Criminal Code. The criminalizing of this kind of act is intended to protect the confidentiality of computer data, data which is in the process of being sent, against their interception without right. The text of the Article 361 from the Romanian Criminal Code represents a transposition of Article 3 of the Council of Europe Convention on cybercrime and of Article 6 of the Directive 2013/40/EU on attacks against information systems.
Keywords: illegal interception; cybercrimes; computer data; computer systems.
JEL Classifications: K14; K24; L86.
Introduction
The crime of illegal interception of a computer data transmission is provided in the Article 361 of the Romanian Criminal Code. The text of the Criminal Code states:
'(1) Interception, without right, of a transmission of computer data which is not public and which is intended to an information system, coming from such system or carried out within an information system, shall be punishable by imprisonment from one to 5 years.
(2)By the same punishment is sanctioned the interception, without right, of an electromagnetic emission coming from an information system, containing computer data which is not public'.
By criminalising this kind of act, one aims at protecting the confidentiality of computer data that is in the process of being sent against their interception without right.
With the development of Information and Communication Technology, other modern forms of data transmission have been added to traditional forms of espionage. Thus, in addition to the unauthorized access of computer data, it is possible to intercept data or electronic communications in several ways, including the capturing of the electromagnetic emissions of monitors (Vašiu and Vašiu 2007,131). The new technologies allow the monitoring and interception of remote transmission systems, the interception of data that are being broadcast starting from the electronic and electromagnetic emissions.
The text of the criminal legislator referred to in the Article 361 of the Romanian Criminal Code is a transposition of Article 3 (illegal interception) of the Council of Europe Convention on cybercrime.
The crime of illegal interception of a computer data transmission is referred to in two legal variants: the first consists in the interception without right of a transmission...