Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
THE COMPUTER MISUSE ACT 1990
Keith R. Wotherspoon*
The vigorous maturing of the computer industry in recent times has witnessed a considerable impact on the life of government,1 commerce,2 banking,3 education,4 and the private citizen.5 But the undoubted economic and other advantages generated by computer systems also present opportunities for the computer-literate, whether employees/insiders or outside hackers, either to use such facilities without the consent of the owner as a prelude to other activities such as fraud or theft, or to engage in the unauthorized scrutiny, alteration or removal of data. Recent professional and parliamentary concern about the potential for misemployment of computers has now culminated in the passage, with government support, of Mr Michael Colvin’s Computer Misuse Bill, which came into force on 29 August 1990.
Although opportunities for misusing computers exist, it is a striking feature of much of the debate generated by those seeking statutory controls that the fears expressed about the widespread occurrence of such misconduct are far from being borne out by empirical examination; for what invariably emerges from the studies is a concern more based on fear than experience. In one recent6 survey of corporate fraud in Britain, a third of about 400 respondent firms expressed fear about what the study team termed “computer fraud”; but interestingly few of these firms had
* Faculty of Law. University of Aberdeen.
1. The National Audit Office has calculated that expenditure and receipts, totalling over £300 billion each year, are processed and accounted for on computers, principally in the areas of social security, taxation and defence: see Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General: The Management of Information Technology Security in Government Departments (H.C. 248: H.M.S.O., 26 February 1991), p. 1. On the future deployment of computers in the public sector, see, e.g., the requirement that a firm of general practitioners in the National Health Service which wishes to be recognized as a fund-holding practice should be capable of handling a practice budget efficiently and, in particular, possess or have access to “equipment and expertise such as computers and ancillary equipment”: National Health Service (Fund-Holding Practices) (Applications and Recognition) Regulations 1990 (S.I. 1990 No. 1753), reg. 6(c).
2. The London Business School estimates that 136,000 companies in the United Kingdom now rely on computers to assist them in the operation of their business: The Times, 23 January 1989.
3. For an account of how the accelerated growth of computerized banking has become the principal dynamic for change on the banking scene, see Banking Services: Law and Practice Report by the Review Committee, Cmnd. 622 (H.M.S.O., 1989), Chaps. 2 and 9 and Appx. E.
4. It is estimated, for example, that the Joint Academic Network (JANET) now links (via public telephone lines) the respective catalogues of about 130 participating universities, polytechnics, research councils and national libraries: see The Times, 25 May 1990.
5. Recent evidence indicates that the number of households possessing a home computer has doubled since 1984: see Central Statistical Office, Social Trends No. 16 (1986), Table 6.14 (9% of households were recorded as possessing a home computer); C.S.O., Social Trends No. 20 (1990), Table 6.4 (18% of households possessed a home computer).
6. Ernst and Whinney, Attitudes of Companies in Britain to Fraud (London, 1986).
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