Sierra Leone

Summary

Sierra Leone's cybercrime framework is solid and well-sourced; its data-protection framework remains nascent. The Cybersecurity and Crime Act 2021 (No. 7 of 2021, assented 25 November 2021) — developed to align with the Budapest Convention — criminalises unauthorised access (s.33), unauthorised access to protected systems (s.34), unauthorised data interception (s.35), and unauthorised data interference (s.36). Full text is available at SierraLII (sierralii.gov.sl), the Ministry of Communication Technology and Innovation (mocti.gov.sl), and Parliament of Sierra Leone. The Act has not been tested on public-page crawling, but the statutory framework is clearly established. On data protection: the Ministry of Information concluded the final national validation of the Data Protection and Right to Access Information Bill 2025 on 7 November 2025; the Bill is now to be submitted to Cabinet and then Parliament — it had not been enacted as of the research date. No TDM copyright exception exists. No sui generis database right. The ECOWAS Supplementary Act A/SA.1/01/10 (2010) is the de facto data-protection framework until the national Bill is enacted. Confidence raised to medium: the cybercrime law is well-sourced with citable primary text; the DP gap is real and documented.