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This question came to mind reviewing this SO answer. There is this similar question here, but it's 8 years old, and covers only the UK and north America.

So, I would like to know if, in the European Union, or at least in France, whether bypassing/avoiding captcha is illegal or not.

Itération 122442
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  • What would be the goal you want to achieve? The main reason people use captchas is to prevent that bots perform some action on a site (e.g. posting messages in a forum). So if you find a way for your bot to avoid the captcha to post spam on the site, that's certainly at least a violation of the terms of use. – PMF Aug 09 '23 at 10:24

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It’s not “bypassing the captcha” that is the problem, but accessing a server in a way that you are not allowed to.

Say you are a human being, you visit a website, there’s a captcha, and your eyesight is quite bad. The website is ok with humans using the site. So asking your nephew to enter the captcha is fine.

Now you are running a bot network. The site doesn’t want your bots. The captcha is there to stop them. The problem is not these bots getting around the captcha, it’s them accessing the server. The captcha might make sure that the site counts as “protected” though, which might make accessing it without authorisation more serious.

gnasher729
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    Does this actually answer the question? It seems that OP has already discerned that bypassing CAPTCH "might" make accessing the site problematic. Discussing some actual laws might make this a more useful answer. – bdb484 Aug 09 '23 at 08:18
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    @bdb484 CFAA (Computer fraud and abuse act) relies on unauthorised use of a protected computer. – Trish Aug 09 '23 at 17:02