Many in corporate America are taking a collective sigh of relief after last week’s landmark decision in Van Buren v. United States, which set a few minds at ease about all those virtual game nights, family catch-ups and holiday celebrations employees hosted during the pandemic using their company-provided Zoom accounts or corporate-issued laptops.

The risk of civil or criminal liability under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for personal use of professional systems and devices is now zero, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. Specifically, CFAA’s prohibition of “access[ing] a computer with authorization and … us[ing] such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter” does not encompass situations where a user had “authorized access” to a particular server or system, but merely exceeded the scope of what they were “entitled to” access.

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