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New Law on Computer Crime in Macau

25 May 2020
Nova Lei de Combate à Criminalidade Informática em Macau

In Macau, the legislation on cybercrime was revised. On April 27, 2020 Law No. 4/2020 was published, which amends Law No. 11 / 2009 (Law on computer crime).

This law increases the penalties applicable to computer-related crimes and introduces two new crimes: “using a computer device to simulate a mobile telecommunications service station” and “illegitimate exposure of serious computer security vulnerability”.

On the other hand, this law introduces the so-called remote computer searches. In the new Article 16, no. 6, it allows the expeditious extension of computer searches “to a differentiated part of the computer system targeted by the initial search, or to another computer system, when there are reasons to believe that the sought data are stored in a different part of that computer system or in a computer system that is lawfully accessible from the initial system”. This possibility, of extending a computer search, permits to law enforcement agents from Macau to access to a computer system physically located outside the Special Administrative Region of Macau.

According to the Report of the Permanent Commission of the Legislative Assembly of the Special Administrative Region of Macau, which approved the legislative project , this solution follows several other laws, namely the Portuguese Cybercrime Law. It also sought inspiration from the recent work of the Council of Europe in this regard. In fact, according to this Report, the law from Macau expressly intends to follow the model of the Budapest Convention.

In particular, intending to enshrine the principles of possibility of obtaining cross-border digital evidence, described in Article 32 of the Budapest Convention, the law assumes that it is necessary to go further, overcoming the limitations described there. On the other hand, in remote searches, the law assumes that there is a need to go beyond the territorial limits described in Article 19 of the Convention, which provides for remote searches only into the national territory.