Commonwealth Numbered Acts

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT 1975 No. 55 of 1975 - SECT 86

86. (1) A person shall not-

   (a)  intercept;

   (b)  authorize, suffer or permit another person to intercept; or

   (c)  do an act or thing that will enable him or another person to
        intercept, information passing over a telecommunications system.

Penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years.

(2) Sub-section (1) does not apply to or in relation to any act or thing done
by an officer or employee in the course of his duties for or in connexion
with-

   (a)  the installation of a line, apparatus or equipment or the operation or
        maintenance of a telecommunications system; or

   (b)  the identifying or tracing of any person in circumstances prescribed
        by the regulations.

(3) Except in the course of his duties as an officer or an employee, an
officer or employee shall not divulge or communicate to any person, or make
use of or record, information that has been intercepted in its passage over a
telecommunications system.

Penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years.

(4) For the purposes of this section, interception of information passing over
a telecommunications system consists of listening to or recording, by any
means, information in its passage over that telecommunications system without
the knowledge of the person for whom that information is being transmitted.

(5) Where a person lawfully on premises or in a vessel, vehicle or aircraft to
which a telecommunications service is provided by the Commission, by means of
a telecommunications installation that is part of that service-

   (a)  listens to or records information that is being transmitted over that
        telecommunications service, being information transmitted to or from
        those premises; or

   (b)  listens to information as a result of a technical defect in a
        telecommunications system or the mistake of an officer or employee of
        the Commission, the listening or recording does not, for the purposes
        of this section, constitute the interception of the information.

(6) In this section-

''telecommunications system'' does not include the telephone system;

''telephone system'' has the same meaning as in the Telephonic Communications
(Interception) Act 1960-1973.