Can I check my mailbox?

Can I check my mailbox?

I've just found my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend's password to her e-mail in a notebook she left at my place after her last visit, which ended in a terrible argument. I really want to go and check her e-mails to make sure she's not saying anything bad about me, but a friend advised me against it on the grounds that it would be criminally reprehensible: is that really the case, given that it was she who left her things lying around my place and that it's only to defend myself if she lies about me?

S, Geneva

This is indeed the case: Article 143bis of our Criminal Code states that anyone who, by means of a data transmission device, gains unauthorised access to a computer system belonging to another party and specially protected against any access by that party will, on complaint, be punished by a custodial sentence of up to three years or a fine.

The legislator's intention is to use this standard to protect the freedom of individuals to decide to whom they grant access to a secure data processing system and the elements stored therein. As long as a security device (in particular a password) has been circumvented, it is of little importance to the criminal authorities to know how this was done.hackerto be sentenced to the aforementioned penalty!

In a similar case involving former spouses, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court confirmed in 2019 that a person's forgetting a piece of paper on which he or she had written down a password for access to his or her e-mail account could in no way be considered as consenting to the consultation of his or her e-mails by a third party; such an act is therefore unlawful. Nor did the Federal Court accept the defendant's argument that she did not know it was illegal: apart from the fact that no one is supposed to ignore the law, it had been established in the proceedings that she had researched the matter on the internet and had even sought legal advice.

Even if, as some commentators on this case law have pointed out, it is not certain that such behaviour would still be punishable if the password were really very simple (e.g. "1234"), it is better to forget your plans to investigateincognitoor any attempt to justify them on the grounds of self-defence, which does not seem to be the case in this instance, as the idea of a pre-emptive strike is hardly accepted in our countries.