Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times the Computer Misuse Act 1990 has been successfully used to prosecute cyber crime in each of the last five years.

The number of prosecutions and convictions for offences which take place online is not centrally held in the court proceedings database as this type of offence is not separately identified in legislation. Equally, offences involving ransomware, malware and phishing are not separately identified in legislation. Identifying these offences separately would require a manual search of court records, which would be at disproportionate costs.

Published figures provide the number of prosecutions and convictions for the following offence that may include offences which occurred online:

Computer Misuse Act 1990

• Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offences (Computer Misuse Act 1990)
• Unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer, etc (Computer Misuse Act 1990)
• Unauthorised access to computer material
• Making, supplying or obtaining articles for use in offence under SS.1 or 3 (Computer Misuse Act 1990, S.3A)

The number of prosecutions and convictions can be found by searching the above offences in the ‘Detailed offence’ filter in the ‘Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code’ data tool available here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/938554/HO-code-tool-principal-offence-2019.xlsx