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Two or three countries, side by side, one row per question. Pick up to 3.

Countries

AzerbaijanChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: Azerbaijan has had a personal data law since 2010. Data may leave the country, but only if you decide the destination protects it as well as Azerbaijan does, and you must declare those exports up front. The real cost is not the export rule. It is that you must register your database with the state before you collect a single record.
The catch: The easy-sounding export rule hides where the work actually is. Nothing may be collected until the system holding it sits on a state register, and the government's security rules are unusually specific, down to the encryption key length and where the archive building may stand. Banking and payments have no separate storage wall, but a new cybersecurity regime started in August 2026 and a social media law bites in 2027.
Does this apply to me?: The law is silent about foreign companies, and that silence is the answer. Unlike Europe's rules, Azerbaijan's personal data law has no clause reaching organisations abroad that sell to Azerbaijanis. What it does have is a duty on the 'owner' of a database to register it with the state before collecting anything, and that duty is enforced through the register in Baku. A foreign company with no Azerbaijani entity has no realistic way to register, and no regulator has said whether it must. From 2027 one narrow group of foreign firms is caught by name: social network providers offering services to users in Azerbaijan must set up a local branch or representative office.Medium confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with conditions, and the condition is a judgement call you make yourself. Azerbaijan bans sending personal data abroad in only two situations: where it would threaten national security, or where the destination country's law does not protect the data to the standard Azerbaijani law sets. Nobody publishes a list of good or bad countries, so you decide, and you carry the risk. If the person has consented, or if the transfer is needed to protect their life or health, the destination's standard stops mattering at all. We looked hard for industry walls in banking, payments, insurance, securities, telecoms and health and found none that force data to stay in the country.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: There is no form to file and no approval to get. You need three things instead: a lawful basis for the processing in the first place, your own written assessment that the destination country protects the data well enough, and a declaration of the transfer in your entry on the state register. That last point is the one people miss. The registration form asks you to list the categories of personal data you send to other countries and to international organisations, so an undeclared export is also a registration failure.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: This changed three months ago. On 3 June 2026 the President abolished the Electronic Security Service and created the National Cybersecurity Agency in its place, under the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport, with express powers over personal data as well as cyber security. The agency is real and working: it runs the state register, takes complaints about data misuse through its website, publishes advisories most weeks, and signed a cooperation agreement with Latvia's data protection inspectorate in July 2026. It is not independent of government, and we found no published fines. The register itself is the strongest evidence it functions: 444 systems are listed and the most recent approval is dated 7 August 2026.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: The ceiling is strict and the floor is thin. Once you have achieved the purpose you collected the data for, and there is no longer a need to keep it, you must destroy it without delay. If your registration is cancelled, everything in that system must be blocked immediately and destroyed. Sensitive data must go as soon as the reason for holding it disappears, unless the person agrees to it staying or being archived. In the other direction, the personal data law itself sets no minimum keeping period. The clearest floor we could verify is new: from 2026, records of a digital forensic investigation into a cyber incident must be kept for at least three years.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There is no personal data breach notification duty at all. The 2010 law never created one, and nothing since has added one, so losing customer records triggers no report to any regulator and no letter to the people affected. What does exist is a cyber incident duty, and it is fast: since August 2026, organisations that run information infrastructure must pass information about cyber threats, attacks and incidents to the National CERT immediately. Once the National CERT asks you something, you have 24 hours to answer a threat research request and 5 working days to answer a digital investigation request. Financial firms have a second clock through the Central Bank's FinCERT portal.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five. One: you cannot start. Collecting or processing personal data in an unregistered system is an offence, and registration takes up to a month. Two: the security rules are engineering specifications, not principles, and include a minimum 256-bit encryption key, a data centre archive system housed in a separate building, and state expert review of your system design documents. Three: every operator must set things up so that police and intelligence bodies can carry out surveillance, and must keep the methods secret. Four: the fine for breaking the data law is 300 to 500 manat, roughly 175 to 290 US dollars, which tells you the real risk is being ordered to stop, not being fined. Five: the law says data system work needs a special licence, and no licensing regime matching it appears to be running.High confidence
What's about to change?: One big date and one big gap. The big date is roughly August 2027, twelve months after publication, when Azerbaijan's minimum age of 16 for social network accounts starts. Providers must verify age using a bank card, an email address and a mobile number, must delete what they collected for that check immediately, and must open a local branch. The penalty ladder ends with a court ordering the platform's traffic in Azerbaijan cut by 90 per cent. The big gap is that the July 2026 cybersecurity law leaves the important lists and technical requirements to be written by ministries, and they are not out yet.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Government — “Hökumət buludu”nun (G-cloud) yaradılması və “bulud” xidmətlərinin göstərilməsi sahəsində tədbirlər haqqında Azərbaycan Respublikası Prezidentinin Fərmanı

United KingdomChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Data can leave the United Kingdom, but you need the right paperwork first. Sending it to Europe or to about fifteen other approved places needs nothing extra. Anywhere else needs a government-published contract and a risk check. No general law forces data to stay in Britain. The privacy regulator is busy and its fines are getting bigger.
The catch: The easy headline stops being true in three places. Telecoms operators must keep backup copies of key network information inside the United Kingdom. National Health Service patient records may only be sent to countries the United Kingdom has formally approved, which rules out the standard contract route. And government material classified SECRET or above cannot sit in public cloud at all. Everyone else can store data abroad with the right contract in place.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. British privacy law reaches a company anywhere in the world if it deliberately offers goods or services to people in the United Kingdom, or watches what they do online. There is no size or revenue floor to hide under. If you are caught and have no British office, you generally have to name a representative in the United Kingdom, unless you are a public body or your processing is rare and low risk.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with paperwork. The United Kingdom has no general law forcing data to stay in the country. Send it to the European Economic Area or another approved country and you need nothing extra; send it anywhere else and you need an approved contract plus a written risk assessment. Three industries are stricter: telecoms, the health service and classified government work. Banking, payments, insurance, securities, education, online gambling and mapping have no location rule that we could find.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is an approved-list one. If the destination is on the government's approved list you may send data with no extra paperwork. If it is not, you must sign the government's own contract template and run a risk assessment first. The list is well populated: the whole European Economic Area plus Andorra, Argentina, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Israel, Jersey, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland and Uruguay, with partial cover for Canada, Japan and the United States.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Information Commissioner's Office, and it is very much working. It fined Capita fourteen million pounds (about $18 million) in October 2025, Reddit £14.47 million (about $18.5 million) in February 2026, and the owner of Imgur in the same month, and it issues smaller marketing fines almost monthly. Watch a quirk: a replacement body called the Information Commission legally exists but had no staff and did no work in its first financial year, so the old office is still the one that acts.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is no single deletion deadline. The rule is that you keep personal data only as long as you actually need it, and you must be able to explain the period you chose. Pulling the other way are minimum keeping periods: company and tax records for six years, telecoms connection records for up to twelve months if the government serves a notice, and telecoms security data for thirteen months. Where a minimum and a maximum clash, the legal duty to keep wins and you keep the data.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count at least three clocks. Any organisation has 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator about a personal data breach, and must tell the affected people if the risk to them is high. Telecoms and internet providers also have 72 hours under the electronic communications rules — that used to be 24 hours and quietly changed on 20 August 2025. Operators of essential services such as water, energy and transport have their own 72-hour clock to their own regulator.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five. (1) A child can consent at 13 here, not 16 — but the children's design code covers everyone under 18, and the regulator fined Reddit £14.47 million (about $18.5 million) for weak age checks. (2) Telecoms firms must keep some backup data physically in Britain. (3) Health service data can only go to approved countries, so the standard contract does not help you. (4) Misusing personal data can be a crime, not just a fine. (5) The government can secretly order a company to weaken its security, and Apple is fighting one of those orders right now.Medium confidence
What's about to change?: Two things to watch in the next twelve months. A cyber security bill is going through Parliament and will widen incident reporting to data centres and managed service suppliers — it is not law yet, so do not plan as if it were. And the privacy regulator is due to be replaced by a new body called the Information Commission, but only once ministers lay the paperwork, which had not happened by mid-2026. The regulator is also writing a statutory code on artificial intelligence.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Telecoms — The Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations 2022, with the Telecommunications Security Code of Practice 2026 (version 1.1)

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	AzerbaijanChecked 18 August 2026	United KingdomChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Waking up	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	Azerbaijan has had a personal data law since 2010. Data may leave the country, but only if you decide the destination protects it as well as Azerbaijan does, and you must declare those exports up front. The real cost is not the export rule. It is that you must register your database with the state before you collect a single record.	Data can leave the United Kingdom, but you need the right paperwork first. Sending it to Europe or to about fifteen other approved places needs nothing extra. Anywhere else needs a government-published contract and a risk check. No general law forces data to stay in Britain. The privacy regulator is busy and its fines are getting bigger.
The catch	The easy-sounding export rule hides where the work actually is. Nothing may be collected until the system holding it sits on a state register, and the government's security rules are unusually specific, down to the encryption key length and where the archive building may stand. Banking and payments have no separate storage wall, but a new cybersecurity regime started in August 2026 and a social media law bites in 2027.	The easy headline stops being true in three places. Telecoms operators must keep backup copies of key network information inside the United Kingdom. National Health Service patient records may only be sent to countries the United Kingdom has formally approved, which rules out the standard contract route. And government material classified SECRET or above cannot sit in public cloud at all. Everyone else can store data abroad with the right contract in place.
Does this apply to me?	The law is silent about foreign companies, and that silence is the answer. Unlike Europe's rules, Azerbaijan's personal data law has no clause reaching organisations abroad that sell to Azerbaijanis. What it does have is a duty on the 'owner' of a database to register it with the state before collecting anything, and that duty is enforced through the register in Baku. A foreign company with no Azerbaijani entity has no realistic way to register, and no regulator has said whether it must. From 2027 one narrow group of foreign firms is caught by name: social network providers offering services to users in Azerbaijan must set up a local branch or representative office.Medium confidence	Yes. British privacy law reaches a company anywhere in the world if it deliberately offers goods or services to people in the United Kingdom, or watches what they do online. There is no size or revenue floor to hide under. If you are caught and have no British office, you generally have to name a representative in the United Kingdom, unless you are a public body or your processing is rare and low risk.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	Yes, with conditions, and the condition is a judgement call you make yourself. Azerbaijan bans sending personal data abroad in only two situations: where it would threaten national security, or where the destination country's law does not protect the data to the standard Azerbaijani law sets. Nobody publishes a list of good or bad countries, so you decide, and you carry the risk. If the person has consented, or if the transfer is needed to protect their life or health, the destination's standard stops mattering at all. We looked hard for industry walls in banking, payments, insurance, securities, telecoms and health and found none that force data to stay in the country.High confidence	Yes, with paperwork. The United Kingdom has no general law forcing data to stay in the country. Send it to the European Economic Area or another approved country and you need nothing extra; send it anywhere else and you need an approved contract plus a written risk assessment. Three industries are stricter: telecoms, the health service and classified government work. Banking, payments, insurance, securities, education, online gambling and mapping have no location rule that we could find.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	There is no form to file and no approval to get. You need three things instead: a lawful basis for the processing in the first place, your own written assessment that the destination country protects the data well enough, and a declaration of the transfer in your entry on the state register. That last point is the one people miss. The registration form asks you to list the categories of personal data you send to other countries and to international organisations, so an undeclared export is also a registration failure.High confidence	The model is an approved-list one. If the destination is on the government's approved list you may send data with no extra paperwork. If it is not, you must sign the government's own contract template and run a risk assessment first. The list is well populated: the whole European Economic Area plus Andorra, Argentina, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Israel, Jersey, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland and Uruguay, with partial cover for Canada, Japan and the United States.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	This changed three months ago. On 3 June 2026 the President abolished the Electronic Security Service and created the National Cybersecurity Agency in its place, under the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport, with express powers over personal data as well as cyber security. The agency is real and working: it runs the state register, takes complaints about data misuse through its website, publishes advisories most weeks, and signed a cooperation agreement with Latvia's data protection inspectorate in July 2026. It is not independent of government, and we found no published fines. The register itself is the strongest evidence it functions: 444 systems are listed and the most recent approval is dated 7 August 2026.High confidence	The Information Commissioner's Office, and it is very much working. It fined Capita fourteen million pounds (about $18 million) in October 2025, Reddit £14.47 million (about $18.5 million) in February 2026, and the owner of Imgur in the same month, and it issues smaller marketing fines almost monthly. Watch a quirk: a replacement body called the Information Commission legally exists but had no staff and did no work in its first financial year, so the old office is still the one that acts.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	The ceiling is strict and the floor is thin. Once you have achieved the purpose you collected the data for, and there is no longer a need to keep it, you must destroy it without delay. If your registration is cancelled, everything in that system must be blocked immediately and destroyed. Sensitive data must go as soon as the reason for holding it disappears, unless the person agrees to it staying or being archived. In the other direction, the personal data law itself sets no minimum keeping period. The clearest floor we could verify is new: from 2026, records of a digital forensic investigation into a cyber incident must be kept for at least three years.Medium confidence	There is no single deletion deadline. The rule is that you keep personal data only as long as you actually need it, and you must be able to explain the period you chose. Pulling the other way are minimum keeping periods: company and tax records for six years, telecoms connection records for up to twelve months if the government serves a notice, and telecoms security data for thirteen months. Where a minimum and a maximum clash, the legal duty to keep wins and you keep the data.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	There is no personal data breach notification duty at all. The 2010 law never created one, and nothing since has added one, so losing customer records triggers no report to any regulator and no letter to the people affected. What does exist is a cyber incident duty, and it is fast: since August 2026, organisations that run information infrastructure must pass information about cyber threats, attacks and incidents to the National CERT immediately. Once the National CERT asks you something, you have 24 hours to answer a threat research request and 5 working days to answer a digital investigation request. Financial firms have a second clock through the Central Bank's FinCERT portal.High confidence	Count at least three clocks. Any organisation has 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator about a personal data breach, and must tell the affected people if the risk to them is high. Telecoms and internet providers also have 72 hours under the electronic communications rules — that used to be 24 hours and quietly changed on 20 August 2025. Operators of essential services such as water, energy and transport have their own 72-hour clock to their own regulator.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five. One: you cannot start. Collecting or processing personal data in an unregistered system is an offence, and registration takes up to a month. Two: the security rules are engineering specifications, not principles, and include a minimum 256-bit encryption key, a data centre archive system housed in a separate building, and state expert review of your system design documents. Three: every operator must set things up so that police and intelligence bodies can carry out surveillance, and must keep the methods secret. Four: the fine for breaking the data law is 300 to 500 manat, roughly 175 to 290 US dollars, which tells you the real risk is being ordered to stop, not being fined. Five: the law says data system work needs a special licence, and no licensing regime matching it appears to be running.High confidence	Five. (1) A child can consent at 13 here, not 16 — but the children's design code covers everyone under 18, and the regulator fined Reddit £14.47 million (about $18.5 million) for weak age checks. (2) Telecoms firms must keep some backup data physically in Britain. (3) Health service data can only go to approved countries, so the standard contract does not help you. (4) Misusing personal data can be a crime, not just a fine. (5) The government can secretly order a company to weaken its security, and Apple is fighting one of those orders right now.Medium confidence
What's about to change?	One big date and one big gap. The big date is roughly August 2027, twelve months after publication, when Azerbaijan's minimum age of 16 for social network accounts starts. Providers must verify age using a bank card, an email address and a mobile number, must delete what they collected for that check immediately, and must open a local branch. The penalty ladder ends with a court ordering the platform's traffic in Azerbaijan cut by 90 per cent. The big gap is that the July 2026 cybersecurity law leaves the important lists and technical requirements to be written by ministries, and they are not out yet.High confidence	Two things to watch in the next twelve months. A cyber security bill is going through Parliament and will widen incident reporting to data centres and managed service suppliers — it is not law yet, so do not plan as if it were. And the privacy regulator is due to be replaced by a new body called the Information Commission, but only once ministers lay the paperwork, which had not happened by mid-2026. The regulator is also writing a statutory code on artificial intelligence.High confidence
Hardest industry wall	Government — “Hökumət buludu”nun (G-cloud) yaradılması və “bulud” xidmətlərinin göstərilməsi sahəsində tədbirlər haqqında Azərbaycan Respublikası Prezidentinin Fərmanı	Telecoms — The Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations 2022, with the Telecommunications Security Code of Practice 2026 (version 1.1)