THE newly refined Cyber Security Act No. 4 of 2025 allows men to sue ladies who receive their transport money and deliberately fail to show up at the venue as such actions are now considered a form of cyber extortion.
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If a woman receives transport money through platforms like mobile money and then goes offline, without showing up, as a man, you can take the step to sue her for extorting money or obtaining an advantage from you.
Under Section 13 of the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, it is an offence to gain anything from another person through deceit or manipulation using a computer system.
This includes obtaining transport money with the promise of showing up then pulling a disappearing act.
“A person commits an offence if that person, through a computer system with intent to extort or gain anything from any person, (e) obtains any advantage from another person,” stated Section 13 (1).
Cyber extortion is punishable by a fine of up to K210,000 or a jail term not exceeding seven years or both.
If your plan from the start was to get the money and never pitch up, you might soon be explaining yourself in court.
But because you failed to show up, maybe due to a tangible and provable reason which you later communicate, a person should not threaten you with the cyber laws to coerce you into into giving them a reward as well.
Section 13 (1) of the law makes it illegal to threaten or accuse someone of a crime just to get something from them or to pressure someone into doing something wrong for your own benefit.
For example, a man texts a girl that “if you don’t agree to meet me or be my girlfriend, I will leak the chats and say you were cheating on your partner with me, ” it is considered Cyber Extortion.
The law also stipulates that it is a crime to compel another person to perform or abstain from performing any act or publish or threaten to publish a private sexual photograph.
“A person commits an offence if that person, through a computer system with intent to extort or gain anything from any person (a) accuses or threatens to accuse any person of committing a crime or offering or making any solicitation or threat to any person as an inducement to commit or permit the commission of a crime; (b) threatens that any person shall be accused by any other person of commission of an offence; (c) knowing the contents of the writing, causes any person to
receive any writing containing such accusation or threat; (d) knowingly transmits any communication containing any threat to cause damage to a computer system with the intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value;” reads the law.
“(f) compels another person to perform or to abstain from performing any act; or
(g) publishes or threatens to publish a private sexual photograph or film of a person who appears in the photograph or film.”
By Catherine Pule
Kalemba, May 1, 2025
