Security News > 2020 > January > Academics call for UK's Computer Misuse Act 1990 to be reformed
Britain's main anti-hacker law, the Computer Misuse Act 1990, is "Confused", "Outdated" and "Ambiguous", according to a group of pro-reform academics.
A report launched this morning by the Criminal Law Reform Now Network described a "Range of measures to better tailor existing offences in line with our international obligations and other modern legal systems" in a call for the 30-year-old Act to be overhauled.
Creation of a "Corporate failure to prevent offence" so companies can be held criminally liable for employees acting as such who commit computer misuse crimes.
A public interest defence allowing accused hackers to "Prove that in the particular circumstances the act or acts was necessary for the detection or prevention of crime, or was justified as being in the public interest".
He added: "Indeed there are frequent occasions in which the Computer Misuse Act has clearly been breached but where prosecutors decide not to pursue charges with any vigour or indeed at all because success would be unlikely to alter the court's view of punishment in the event of conviction."