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

Countries

SwitzerlandChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: MediumEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Switzerland is easy to send data out of, as long as the destination is one the government trusts. An official list names about 44 approved places, including every European Union country and United States firms in one certification scheme. Anywhere else, you sign an approved contract first. The sting is elsewhere: getting it wrong is a crime, and the case lands on a person, not the company.
The catch: The relaxed headline stops the moment you touch three areas. Electronic patient record data must physically sit in Switzerland. Banking client data is protected by a criminal secrecy law with a three-year prison ceiling. Doctors, lawyers, notaries, pharmacists, psychologists and nurses are under a near-identical criminal secrecy rule, and a normal supplier contract does not cure it. Financial market infrastructures also need the regulator's permission before outsourcing anything important.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. Swiss privacy law reaches any organisation whose activities have an effect in Switzerland, even one with no office, staff or company here. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to duck under, and there is no register to sign up to. You only need a named representative inside Switzerland if four things are true at once: you are selling to people here or watching what they do, you are doing it on a large scale, you are doing it regularly, and the processing is high risk for the people involved. Very few foreign companies meet all four.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general, yes. Switzerland publishes an official list of countries and territories it considers safe, and data can move to any of them with no extra paperwork. The list has about 44 entries. It covers all 27 European Union countries, the United Kingdom, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Canada, Israel, Argentina, Uruguay and New Zealand. It covers the United States only for companies signed up to one specific certification scheme. Japan is not on it, even though the European Union treats Japan as safe. For anywhere not on the list, you sign an approved contract first. But three industries override this completely, and one of them is an outright ban.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is an approved-destinations list, and it is well populated: about 44 countries, territories and one sector-specific entry are on it right now. Send data to a listed place and you need nothing at all. Send it anywhere else and you need one of a short menu of safeguards, the most common being a standard contract. Switzerland has formally accepted the European Union's standard contract template, so most companies can reuse the paperwork they already have.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The main regulator is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. It is real, fully staffed and busy: in the year to 31 March 2026 it ran 156 low-level interventions, 22 preliminary enquiries and 9 formal investigations, and it had 2 cases running in the Federal Administrative Court. It has issued binding orders against a bank, a debt collection firm and a fashion group, and in October 2025 the court confirmed its new way of working. The catch is that this regulator cannot fine anyone. Fines under the privacy law are criminal, they are handed out by cantonal prosecutors, and they land on individual people.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Both directions apply and they pull against each other. The floor: business books, accounting records and audit reports must be kept for ten years. Financial market infrastructures keep their records ten years, trade repositories keep trade data ten years after the contract matures, electronic patient record access logs are kept ten years, and telecoms companies keep connection records for six months. The ceiling: the privacy law says personal data must be destroyed or made anonymous as soon as it is no longer needed. There is no fixed number. Where the two clash, the specific legal duty to keep wins.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count four clocks, not one. The privacy regulator must be told 'as quickly as possible' when a breach is likely to put people at serious risk, with no number of hours attached. If you run critical infrastructure, you have a hard 24 hours to tell the national cyber security office. If you are supervised by the financial regulator, you have 24 hours to notify your supervisor and 72 hours to file the full report. Electronic patient record communities have to report security incidents to the health office. Most failures come from teams who set a single deadline and miss the others.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in the summary. One: the penalty is a criminal fine on a named human being, not an administrative fine on the company, so your compliance lead is personally exposed. Two: sending data abroad without a valid safeguard is itself a crime. Three: banking secrecy and medical or legal secrecy are criminal laws with prison ceilings, and a standard supplier contract does not fix them. Four: cantonal authorities and cantonal hospitals are outside the federal law entirely. Five: the 24-hour cyber report has no penalty for being late, which misleads people into thinking it is optional.High confidence
What's about to change?: Nothing in the next twelve months changes where Swiss data may be stored. The electronic identity law has passed but is not switched on yet, and the financial regulator is holding a rule change until it is. A company transparency law hits banks on 1 October 2026. A rewrite of the telecoms surveillance rules has been announced for years and still has not landed. The bigger risk is not new legislation at all: the government can rewrite the approved-destinations list by itself, overnight, with no vote and no consultation.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: Health and social care — Verordnung ueber das elektronische Patientendossier (EPDV)
Finance — FINMA-Rundschreiben 2018/3 'Outsourcing - Banken, Versicherungsunternehmen und ausgewaehlte Finanzinstitute nach FINIG'

ArmeniaChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: MediumEnforcement: Dormant

In one paragraph: Armenia lets personal data leave, but only to a country on an official approved list of 53 states, or with case-by-case permission from the privacy regulator. That regulator has had no boss since February 2026 and the largest fine it can impose is about 1,300 US dollars. The real constraints are elsewhere: government data sent to a foreign cloud must keep a backup copy inside Armenia, and banking and medical secrecy sit outside the privacy law entirely.
The catch: The approved-country list is worthless in three places. Government bodies must keep an in-country backup of anything they put in a cloud abroad. Bank, notarial, lawyer and insurance secrets are carved out of the privacy law and are governed by their own secrecy statutes, which list exhaustively who may see the data and do not mention foreign cloud providers. And leaking medical secrets is a crime that can put a named individual in prison, not just a fine on the company.
Does this apply to me?: Probably not, if you have nothing in Armenia. The privacy law describes who it covers by naming Armenian public bodies, companies and individuals who process personal data. It contains no clause saying it follows Armenians' data abroad, and no rule requiring a foreign company to appoint someone inside Armenia. There is no size or revenue threshold either, so a one-person Armenian business is caught exactly like a bank.Medium confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with paperwork. Armenia runs an approved-country list: if the destination is on it, you can send data with no permission from anyone. The list is real and populated — 53 countries, including all of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Georgia and Russia. Sending data anywhere else needs written permission from the privacy regulator first, and that regulator currently has nobody in the chair. Three sectors override this entirely: government, banking-type secrets, and health.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is an approved list, and the list is full. Fifty-three countries were approved on 8 July 2024 and that decision has never been changed. If your destination is on it you need nothing — no standard contract, no filing, no fee. If it is not on it, you must write to the regulator before you send anything, attach the contract you plan to sign, and wait up to 30 days for a yes or a no.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: On paper, the Personal Data Protection Agency inside the Ministry of Justice. In practice, nobody right now: its head resigned with effect from 24 February 2026 and no replacement appointment has been published. In more than eleven years the agency has published exactly one general decision — the approved-country list. Two other regulators are genuinely working: the Central Bank supervises banks, payment firms, insurers and securities, and a brand-new Information Systems Regulatory Commission was appointed in March and April 2026 to police cybersecurity and state computer systems.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: The floor is five years for anything that proves your tax position. The ceiling is not a number — it is a principle: you must destroy or block personal data as soon as you no longer need it for the purpose you collected it for. Two hard clocks sit inside that principle. If someone withdraws consent you have ten working days to destroy their data, then three more working days to tell them you did. If you spot unlawful processing you have three working days to fix it or destroy the data.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count three clocks. Under the privacy law, if data leaks out of your electronic systems you must immediately publish a public announcement about it and at the same time tell the Armenian police and the privacy regulator — there is no grace period and no threshold. If you run a system in a sector the state calls vital, you have 24 hours to tell the cybersecurity regulator, 72 hours to send an update, two days to warn the people affected, and one month to file a final report. Both sets of duties can bite at once.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that will ruin your week. One: a data leak must be announced publicly and reported to the police, not just to the regulator. Two: encryption is legally compulsory, not a best practice, and failing to use it is its own separate fine. Three: before you process biometric or sensitive data you must notify the regulator in advance and wait to be entered in its register. Four: to process a dead person's data you need the consent of all of their legal heirs. Five: a child is anyone under 16 here, not 13 and not 18.High confidence
What's about to change?: Armenia rewired its digital rulebook in December 2025 and the deadlines land through 2026, 2027 and 2028. Rules for cyber incidents and for state computer systems are already live. Detailed technical rules are due by January 2027, internal cybersecurity policies and risk assessments by July 2027, and security certificates for critical systems by January 2028. The change most likely to catch someone out is not a new law at all: the approved-country list can be rewritten by one official's signature.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Government — «Ամպայինն առաջինը» քաղաքականության մշակման և ներդրման մասին ՀՀ կառավարության որոշում

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	SwitzerlandChecked 18 August 2026	ArmeniaChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Depends on your industry Work: Medium Enforcement: Active	Yes, with paperwork Work: Medium Enforcement: Dormant
In one paragraph	Switzerland is easy to send data out of, as long as the destination is one the government trusts. An official list names about 44 approved places, including every European Union country and United States firms in one certification scheme. Anywhere else, you sign an approved contract first. The sting is elsewhere: getting it wrong is a crime, and the case lands on a person, not the company.	Armenia lets personal data leave, but only to a country on an official approved list of 53 states, or with case-by-case permission from the privacy regulator. That regulator has had no boss since February 2026 and the largest fine it can impose is about 1,300 US dollars. The real constraints are elsewhere: government data sent to a foreign cloud must keep a backup copy inside Armenia, and banking and medical secrecy sit outside the privacy law entirely.
The catch	The relaxed headline stops the moment you touch three areas. Electronic patient record data must physically sit in Switzerland. Banking client data is protected by a criminal secrecy law with a three-year prison ceiling. Doctors, lawyers, notaries, pharmacists, psychologists and nurses are under a near-identical criminal secrecy rule, and a normal supplier contract does not cure it. Financial market infrastructures also need the regulator's permission before outsourcing anything important.	The approved-country list is worthless in three places. Government bodies must keep an in-country backup of anything they put in a cloud abroad. Bank, notarial, lawyer and insurance secrets are carved out of the privacy law and are governed by their own secrecy statutes, which list exhaustively who may see the data and do not mention foreign cloud providers. And leaking medical secrets is a crime that can put a named individual in prison, not just a fine on the company.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. Swiss privacy law reaches any organisation whose activities have an effect in Switzerland, even one with no office, staff or company here. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to duck under, and there is no register to sign up to. You only need a named representative inside Switzerland if four things are true at once: you are selling to people here or watching what they do, you are doing it on a large scale, you are doing it regularly, and the processing is high risk for the people involved. Very few foreign companies meet all four.High confidence	Probably not, if you have nothing in Armenia. The privacy law describes who it covers by naming Armenian public bodies, companies and individuals who process personal data. It contains no clause saying it follows Armenians' data abroad, and no rule requiring a foreign company to appoint someone inside Armenia. There is no size or revenue threshold either, so a one-person Armenian business is caught exactly like a bank.Medium confidence
Can the data leave the country?	In general, yes. Switzerland publishes an official list of countries and territories it considers safe, and data can move to any of them with no extra paperwork. The list has about 44 entries. It covers all 27 European Union countries, the United Kingdom, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Canada, Israel, Argentina, Uruguay and New Zealand. It covers the United States only for companies signed up to one specific certification scheme. Japan is not on it, even though the European Union treats Japan as safe. For anywhere not on the list, you sign an approved contract first. But three industries override this completely, and one of them is an outright ban.High confidence	Yes, with paperwork. Armenia runs an approved-country list: if the destination is on it, you can send data with no permission from anyone. The list is real and populated — 53 countries, including all of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Georgia and Russia. Sending data anywhere else needs written permission from the privacy regulator first, and that regulator currently has nobody in the chair. Three sectors override this entirely: government, banking-type secrets, and health.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	The model is an approved-destinations list, and it is well populated: about 44 countries, territories and one sector-specific entry are on it right now. Send data to a listed place and you need nothing at all. Send it anywhere else and you need one of a short menu of safeguards, the most common being a standard contract. Switzerland has formally accepted the European Union's standard contract template, so most companies can reuse the paperwork they already have.High confidence	The model is an approved list, and the list is full. Fifty-three countries were approved on 8 July 2024 and that decision has never been changed. If your destination is on it you need nothing — no standard contract, no filing, no fee. If it is not on it, you must write to the regulator before you send anything, attach the contract you plan to sign, and wait up to 30 days for a yes or a no.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	The main regulator is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. It is real, fully staffed and busy: in the year to 31 March 2026 it ran 156 low-level interventions, 22 preliminary enquiries and 9 formal investigations, and it had 2 cases running in the Federal Administrative Court. It has issued binding orders against a bank, a debt collection firm and a fashion group, and in October 2025 the court confirmed its new way of working. The catch is that this regulator cannot fine anyone. Fines under the privacy law are criminal, they are handed out by cantonal prosecutors, and they land on individual people.High confidence	On paper, the Personal Data Protection Agency inside the Ministry of Justice. In practice, nobody right now: its head resigned with effect from 24 February 2026 and no replacement appointment has been published. In more than eleven years the agency has published exactly one general decision — the approved-country list. Two other regulators are genuinely working: the Central Bank supervises banks, payment firms, insurers and securities, and a brand-new Information Systems Regulatory Commission was appointed in March and April 2026 to police cybersecurity and state computer systems.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	Both directions apply and they pull against each other. The floor: business books, accounting records and audit reports must be kept for ten years. Financial market infrastructures keep their records ten years, trade repositories keep trade data ten years after the contract matures, electronic patient record access logs are kept ten years, and telecoms companies keep connection records for six months. The ceiling: the privacy law says personal data must be destroyed or made anonymous as soon as it is no longer needed. There is no fixed number. Where the two clash, the specific legal duty to keep wins.High confidence	The floor is five years for anything that proves your tax position. The ceiling is not a number — it is a principle: you must destroy or block personal data as soon as you no longer need it for the purpose you collected it for. Two hard clocks sit inside that principle. If someone withdraws consent you have ten working days to destroy their data, then three more working days to tell them you did. If you spot unlawful processing you have three working days to fix it or destroy the data.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	Count four clocks, not one. The privacy regulator must be told 'as quickly as possible' when a breach is likely to put people at serious risk, with no number of hours attached. If you run critical infrastructure, you have a hard 24 hours to tell the national cyber security office. If you are supervised by the financial regulator, you have 24 hours to notify your supervisor and 72 hours to file the full report. Electronic patient record communities have to report security incidents to the health office. Most failures come from teams who set a single deadline and miss the others.High confidence	Count three clocks. Under the privacy law, if data leaks out of your electronic systems you must immediately publish a public announcement about it and at the same time tell the Armenian police and the privacy regulator — there is no grace period and no threshold. If you run a system in a sector the state calls vital, you have 24 hours to tell the cybersecurity regulator, 72 hours to send an update, two days to warn the people affected, and one month to file a final report. Both sets of duties can bite at once.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five things that are not in the summary. One: the penalty is a criminal fine on a named human being, not an administrative fine on the company, so your compliance lead is personally exposed. Two: sending data abroad without a valid safeguard is itself a crime. Three: banking secrecy and medical or legal secrecy are criminal laws with prison ceilings, and a standard supplier contract does not fix them. Four: cantonal authorities and cantonal hospitals are outside the federal law entirely. Five: the 24-hour cyber report has no penalty for being late, which misleads people into thinking it is optional.High confidence	Five things that will ruin your week. One: a data leak must be announced publicly and reported to the police, not just to the regulator. Two: encryption is legally compulsory, not a best practice, and failing to use it is its own separate fine. Three: before you process biometric or sensitive data you must notify the regulator in advance and wait to be entered in its register. Four: to process a dead person's data you need the consent of all of their legal heirs. Five: a child is anyone under 16 here, not 13 and not 18.High confidence
What's about to change?	Nothing in the next twelve months changes where Swiss data may be stored. The electronic identity law has passed but is not switched on yet, and the financial regulator is holding a rule change until it is. A company transparency law hits banks on 1 October 2026. A rewrite of the telecoms surveillance rules has been announced for years and still has not landed. The bigger risk is not new legislation at all: the government can rewrite the approved-destinations list by itself, overnight, with no vote and no consultation.Medium confidence	Armenia rewired its digital rulebook in December 2025 and the deadlines land through 2026, 2027 and 2028. Rules for cyber incidents and for state computer systems are already live. Detailed technical rules are due by January 2027, internal cybersecurity policies and risk assessments by July 2027, and security certificates for critical systems by January 2028. The change most likely to catch someone out is not a new law at all: the approved-country list can be rewritten by one official's signature.High confidence
Hardest industry wall	Health and social care — Verordnung ueber das elektronische Patientendossier (EPDV) Finance — FINMA-Rundschreiben 2018/3 'Outsourcing - Banken, Versicherungsunternehmen und ausgewaehlte Finanzinstitute nach FINIG'	Government — «Ամպայինն առաջինը» քաղաքականության մշակման և ներդրման մասին ՀՀ կառավարության որոշում