Clifford Chance

Scraping Away at the CFAA– The Supreme Court’s Interpretation of “Exceeds Authorized Access” Limits the Scope of the Statute’s Application to Data Scrapers

June 17, 2021

In a long awaited decision that has a significant application for data scraping, the Supreme Court issued on June 3, 2021 its decision in Van Buren v. United States, significantly limiting the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by holding that users who access information that they are entitled to obtain but use that information for improper purposes do not violate the statute. The majority opinion adopted a narrow interpretation of the statute that will make it more difficult to pursue both civil and criminal actions based on alleged misappropriation of data.  

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