Abstract: The core technology of data scraping is web crawling. In an era of big data, data scraping is beneficial to the social development while incurs plenty of risks, such as infringement of information system security, personal information security, information function, and copyright. There are some difficulties on identifying the criminal liability for data scraping. For instance, it is difficult to analyze interests, identify acts and evaluate harm. In the USA, the model of context was created and applied to the amendment of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and related administrative law. To overcome these difficulties, it is necessary to learn from USA experience and add some provisions concerning “illegal access” and “illegal acquisition” to the criminal law, to present the hallmark of web crawlers in the administrative law and to clarify the quantitative factors of crime of harm in the judicial interpretations. 

Key words:  data scraping, web crawlers, criminal liability, legislation, judicial interpretations