Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations

by Michael N. Schmitt

16. Although the International Group of Experts could not define ‘inherently governmental functions’ definitively, it agreed that a cyber operation that interferes with data or services that are necessary for the exercise of inherently governmental functions is prohibited as a violation of sovereignty (and in some cases the prohibition of intervention, Rule 66). Examples include changing or deleting data such that it interferes with the delivery of social services, the conduct of elections, the collection of taxes, the effective conduct of diplomacy, and the performance of key national defence activities. The Experts further agreed that it is irrelevant whether the inherently governmental function is performed by the State itself or has been privatised.