By Pablo A. Palazzi

New Computer Crimes Law

The Argentine Congress enacted a computer crime law. The new law (law n. 26.388) criminalizes the illegal access to a computer system, computer fraud and damages to information and software. In addition, the law creates a new offence related to privacy and data protection law: It is illegal to open, access or publish an email or document without authorization of the sender. Finally, the law makes it a crime to access without authorization a database, to illegally provide personal data to third parties when the law establishes its secrecy and to insert personal data in a database.

Data Protection Agency of Argentina Issues Inspection Regulation

The national data protection law issued Disposition 5/2008 related to the procedure to perform inspections in data controller offices. The aim of Disposition 5/2008 is to regulate how inspections will take place and to detail their stages. The data protection agency will send a questionnaire to the company 10 days before the inspection takes place. Later, it could visit the premises and revise the databases and the compliance with security regulations, registrations and other requirements of the law.

Pablo A. Palazzi is an attorney in the law firm of Allende & Brea, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina with an extensive practice in data protection law. He is admitted to practice law in New York and Argentina. He may be reached at pablo@palazzi.com.