Expat in UAE fined Dh1 million for illegal access of govt data

Abu Dhabi - He has been jailed for three years.

A public department employee has been sentenced to three years in jail for illegally obtaining confidential information from a government facility.
The Abu Dhabi Cassation Court also ordered the European national to pay a Dh1-million fine. He shall be deported after serving his jail term.
Court documents showed that the man - who was working in a government department - used advanced technology to illegally retrieve the data from the computer system at his workplace.
He then sent the information to his e-mail and shared it with other people in violation of the law.
The man was not supposed to use the computer system where vital information on government business is stored, but internal investigations had confirmed that he broke the rule.
The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance had earlier sentenced him to 10 years in jail after he was found guilty of violating online laws and illegally obtaining and disclosing confidential information.
The man challenged the sentence in the appeal court and got it reduced to three years. He then went to Abu Dhabi's top court, which upheld the appeal court's sentence.
ismail@khaleejtimes.com

• Abu Dhabi