8 Electronic Crimes Act, 2013 No. 14 of 2013 PART II OFFENCES 3. No. 14 of 2013 17 Electronic Crimes Act, 2013 (b) use or cause to be used an electronic system to search any data contained in or available to the electronic system; (a) access an electronic system or network; (c) access any information, code or technology which has the capability of transforming or unscrambling encrypted data contained or available to an electronic system into readable and comprehensible format or text for the purpose of investigating any offence under this Act or any other offence which is disclosed in the course of the lawful exercise of the powers under this section; (b) download, copy or extract data, electronic database or information from such electronic system or network including information or data held or stored in a removable storage medium; (d) require a person in possession of the decryption information to grant the police officer access to such decryption information necessary to decrypt data required for required for the purpose of investigating the offence; Access and interference (1) A person shall not intentionally, without lawful excuse or justification,– (c) introduce or cause to be introduced a contaminant or malicious code into an electronic system or network; (d) damage or cause to be damaged an electronic system or network, data, electronic data base or other program residing in such electronic system or network; (e) disrupt or causes disruption of an electronic system or network; (f) deny or cause the denial of access to a person authorised to access an electronic system or network by any means; (g) (h) provide assistance to a person to facilitate access to an electronic system or network in contravention of the provisions of this Act; charge the services availed of by a person to the account of another person by tampering with or manipulating an electronic system or network; (i) willfully destroy, delete or alter information residing in an electronic system or diminish its value or utility, or affect it injuriously by any means; or (j) steal, conceal, destroy or alter or cause a person to steal, conceal, destroy or alter any source code used for an electronic system with an intention to cause damage. (2) A person who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable on- (e) seize or secure an electronic system. (3) A person shall not intentionally, without lawful excuse or justification – (a) obstruct a police officer in the exercise of the police officer’s powers under this section; or (b) fail to comply with a request made by a police officer under this section. (4) A person who contravenes subsection (3) commits a summary offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding twelve months, or both. (5) For the purposes of this section– “decryption information” means information or technology that enables a person to readily re-transform or unscramble encrypted data from its unreadable and incomprehensible format to its plain text version; “encrypted data” means data which has been transformed or scrambled from its plain text version to an unreadable and incomprehensible format, regardless of the technique utilized for transformation or scrambling, and irrespective of the medium in which such data occurs or can be found for the purposes of protecting the content of such data; and “plain text version” means original data before it has been transformed or scrambled to an unreadable or incomprehensible format. (i) summary conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or to both; or 20. Real time collection of traffic data (ii) conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding five hundred thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years, or to both. Where a police officer has reasonable grounds to believe that any data would be relevant for the purposes of investigation and prosecution of an offence under this Act, the police officer may apply to a Magistrate/Judge in Chambers for an Order–