Disclosure of secrets

In this case, apublic official used, without permission or knowledge of the affected person, theprivate access key to their computer to access their desktop and change the password. Then, accessed severalfolders that were identified withprivate and personal files. The official's intention was todiscover private information and obtain personal data that could beused to harm the other person.

Although initially the official was convicted ofdisclosure of secrets, the Superior Court of Justice decided to acquit him on appeal. This Court considered thatit was not clear which sensitive or confidential data had been accessed and, therefore, it was not proven that thenecessary harm for the offense.

However, the Supreme Court (SC) has overturned this acquittal and has ruled that, even if it has not been proven that the data was particularly sensitive, theact of obtaining the access key and entering the computer is sufficient to consider that there was anunauthorized access to reserved personal data. The key of a computer protects all the information inside and accessing itopens the door to a lot of personal information, even if thespecific details of all the files viewed are not later specified.

For the SC, the harm is donesimply by accessing the computer's content improperly using someone else's key, which is enough for the harm required by the offense to exist. In this way, the conviction of the official is confirmed.

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