Overview

• The Corte di Cassazione ruled that accessing someone’s WhatsApp without permission constitutes “accesso abusivo a sistema informatico” under Italian criminal law.
• The decision follows an appeal by a man convicted of extracting chats and call logs from his ex-wife’s two password-protected phones during their divorce proceedings.
• In its reasoning, the court held that WhatsApp’s integration of hardware, software and networks qualifies it as a computer system protected by law.
• Judges clarified that even if a device owner grants access, exceeding the scope or duration of that consent breaches legal limits and triggers criminal liability.
• The dispute dates back to a harassment complaint in March 2022, a December 2024 conviction by Messina’s appeals court and this final ruling on June 5, 2025.