IF you have a habit of secretly scrolling through your partner’s WhatsApp chats or snooping through their messages while they shower, you may want to rethink that behaviour dear sir or madam or risk spending two years behind bars.
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The newly updated Cyber Crimes Act No. 4 of 2025 has taken a bold step in tightening digital privacy laws and it’s now bad news for nosy lovers.
The law criminalises accessing someone’s phone, computer or any digital device without permission even if that person is your spouse or partner.
Under Part II, Section 3 of the Act, it is a criminal offence for anyone to “intentionally and without lawful authority or in excess of authority” bypass security measures or monitor any part of another person’s computer system, which includes mobile phones, laptops and tablets.
Doing such an act gets you up to five years imprisonment or a fine not exceeding K150,000.
However, the law does not just apply to lovers or married couples but also applies to anyone trying to access someone’s gadgets.
“A person shall not intentionally and without lawful authority or in excess of authority, infringe any security measure, access or monitor a computer system or any part of a computer system of another person,” stated Section 3 subsection (1) of the Cyber Crimes Act No. 4 of 2025.
Subsection (2) says: “a person who contravenes subsection (1), commits an offence and is liable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding five hundred thousand penalty units or to imprisonment for a term not
exceeding five years or to both.”
By Catherine Pule
Kalemba, May 1, 2025
