Computer criminals in Victoria will face prison terms of up to 10 years under tough new legislation, Attorney-General Rob Hulls announced today.
The
Crimes (Property Damage and Computer Offences) Bill, introduced into Parliament yesterday, creates a range of new offences targeting people who impair the security, integrity and reliability of computer data and electronic communications.
Hulls says the new computer crime offences take into account the latest advances in computer technology and complement the range of existing offences in the
Crimes Act aimed at computer fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment.
"Malicious computer hacking or the distribution of computer viruses is not child's play. This sort of criminal behaviour can have a massive economic and social impact," he says.
"That's why the Bracks government is following through on a Leaders' Summit Agreement on Terrorism and Multi-jurisdictional Crimes from earlier this year and introducing these new computer offences in concert with the Commonwealth and other states and territories.
The Bill will introduce the following new offences:
- unauthorised access, modification or impairment with intention to commit a serious offence (punishable by a maximum penalty the same as the offence intended)
- unauthorised modification of data to cause impairment (punishable by a maximum penalty 10 years' imprisonment)
- unauthorised impairment of electronic communication (punishable by a maximum penalty 10 years' imprisonment)
- possession of data with intent to commit computer offence (punishable by a maximum penalty three years' imprisonment)
- producing, supplying or obtaining data with intent to commit computer offence (punishable by a maximum penalty three years' imprisonment)
- unauthorised access to or modification of restricted data (summary offence – punishable by a maximum penalty two years' imprisonment)
- unauthorised impairment of data held in computer disk, credit card etc (summary offence – punishable by a maximum penalty two years' imprisonment).