*Van Buren Vs United States*
*Date 3rd June 2021*
*Forum-Supreme Court of United States of America*
*Sub-Whether an individual who has valid access to a computer upon which he retrieves some information for an illegal purpose , can he be said to have authorised access or not*

The full bench of Supreme Court of USA delivered an important verdict on 3rd June,2021 where there was a difference of opinion with six judges in favour and 3 judges (including Chief Justice of USA) against where the issue involved was unauthorised access of Computer by a Police Sergeant to access information from a secured database for a culprit in return for money which was basically an FBI laid sting operation and the lower court held that he had violated the law. It was argued that what was prevented was only information gathered in pursuance of unauthorised access(outside hacking) and not authorised access(inside hacking).

The court finally ruled in favour of the appellant by holding that he was not guilty. The court based its ruling on several argued like i) employers commonly state that computers and electronic devices can be used only for business purposes. Thus, an employee who sends a personal e-mail or reads the news using a work computer has violated the relevant Act and thus would open flood gate of litigation and criminalise every such act.

This judgement though related to USA will have implications throughout the world whosoever is using the computer.

Ramesh Patodia
04-06-2021