Section 43 · Penalty and compensation for damage to computer, computer system, etc

¹[43. ² [Penalty and compensation] for damage to computer, computer system, etc.--If any person without permission of the owner or any other person who is in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network,--

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(a) accesses or secures access to such computer, computer system or computer network ³ [or computer resource];

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(b) downloads, copies or extracts any data, computer data base or information from such computer, computer system or computer network including information or data held or stored in any removable storage medium;

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(c) introduces or causes to be introduced any computer contaminant or computer virus into any computer, computer system or computer network;

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(d) damages or causes to be damaged any computer, computer system or computer network, data, computer data base or any other programmes residing in such computer, computer system or computer network;

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(e) disrupts or causes disruption of any computer, computer system or computer network;

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(f) denies or causes the denial of access to any person authorised to access any computer, computer system or computer network by any means;

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(g) provides any assistance to any person to facilitate access to a computer, computer system or computer network in contravention of the provisions of this Act, rules or regulations made thereunder;

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(h) charges the services availed of by a person to the account of another person by tampering with or manipulating any computer, computer system, or computer network;

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⁴ [(i) destroys, deletes or alters any information residing in a computer resource or diminishes its value or utility or affects it injuriously by any means;

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(j) steal, conceal, destroys or alters or causes any person to steal, conceal, destroy or alter any computer source code used for a computer resource with an intention to cause damage;]

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⁵ [he shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation to the person so affected.]

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Explanation.--For the purposes of this section,--

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(i) "computer contaminant" means any set of computer instructions that are designed--

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(a) to modify, destroy, record, transmit data or programme residing within a computer, computer system or computer network; or

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(b) by any means to usurp the normal operation of the computer, computer system, or computer network;

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(ii) "computer data-base" means a representation of information, knowledge, facts, concepts or instructions in text, image, audio, video that are being prepared or have been prepared in a formalised manner or have been produced by a computer, computer system or computer network and are intended for use in a computer, computer system or computer network;

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(iii) "computer virus" means any computer instruction, information, data or programme that destroys, damages, degrades or adversely affects the performance of a computer resource or attaches itself to another computer resource and operates when a programme, data or instruction is executed or some other event takes place in that computer resource;

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(iv) "damage" means to destroy, alter, delete, add, modify or rearrange any computer resource by any means.

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⁴ [(v) "computer source code" means the listing of programme, computer commands, design and layout and programme analysis of computer resource in any form.]

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