The Substantive Rules of the Offences of Iegal Access to Information System Under the Jordanian Cybercrime Act 2015 No 27: A Comparative Study

This paper provides a comparative study of the offences of illegal access to information system pursuant to the Jordanian Cybercrime Act 2015 No 27. It explores the substantive law on these offenses as established in Articles (3 and 12) of the Jordanian law in comparison with other Acts. It basically addresses the offences of accessing a given information system or website without authorization or contrary to the granted authorization or by overriding it. Through analyzing the relevant law on this issue, the paper tends to trace the gaps and defects and any substantive flaws or imbalances in the laws governing such offences. Central to its purpose is to provide insight into how this comparative study might contribute to any potential law reform on this contentious issue. To this end, it is suggested that the Jordanian Act should be amended to explicitly criminalize the conduct of mistaken access to a given information system and with knowledge the offender persist to do so. Key words: offences of illegal access, information system, cybercriminal, cross-border crime, access without authorization, overriding of authorization.