First UK case on Spyware

There was a recent case R v Waters, that reached the Court of Appeal about a man who had conspired to install spyware software on his wife's computer. He was sentenced to four months imprisonment and the Court of Appeal upheld the ruling:

Computers are an established part of modern life. An increasing amount of personal and private information is kept on computers, not only by the State and large organisations but also by individuals. The privacy of that information must be protected and it is vulnerable to the kind of unauthorised interference and intrusion that occurred in this case. The judge correctly identified deterrence as an element of sentencing in this case. In our judgment, a sentence of imprisonment for offences such as this was not wrong in principle.

For further reading, see also:

• Deterrent sentence appropriate for "computer spying" [2007] Justice of the Peace & Local Government Law 171(7),
  115

• SCL: Spyware Sentence