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Countries

EcuadorChecked 19 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Ecuador lets personal data leave the country, but only with paperwork. You need one of a short list of approved routes, and you must register each transfer with the regulator at least ten days before it happens. No country has yet been declared safe to send data to. The privacy regulator opened in 2024, is fully staffed, and issued its first six-figure fines in December 2025.
The catch: No Ecuadorian industry forces data to physically stay in the country — we searched banking, payments, insurance, securities, health, telecoms, government cloud and mapping and found no storage-location rule. The catch is different and applies to everyone: you must register your processing with the regulator within ten days of starting it, and register every outbound transfer ten days before it happens. One genuine sector wall exists — credit-reference data on Ecuadorians may only be held and supplied by the banking regulator, so a private credit bureau cannot operate at all.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. The law reaches a company with no office in Ecuador if it offers goods or services to people living in Ecuador, or watches what they do there. There is no size or revenue threshold to hide behind. A foreign company caught this way must appoint a special attorney who actually lives in Ecuador and register that person with the regulator.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with conditions — this is a European-style regime, not an open one. Data may only go abroad through an approved route, and you must tell the regulator before it goes. We looked hard for industries that force data to stay inside Ecuador and found none: banking, payments, insurance, securities, health, telecoms, government cloud and mapping all lack a storage-location rule. The one real wall is credit-reference data, which only the banking regulator may hold.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Think allowlist, not blocklist: a transfer is not allowed unless you can name the route you are using. The routes are an official finding that the destination is safe, a set of approved standard contract clauses, approved group-wide rules, an approved industry code, or a one-off permission. No country has been declared safe yet, so in practice almost everyone uses the standard clauses. You must also register the transfer with the regulator at least ten days before it happens.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Superintendency of Personal Data Protection, and yes, it is genuinely working. It opened in April 2024 under Superintendent Fabrizio Peralta Diaz, finished hiring its roughly thirty-three staff by October 2024, published a formula for calculating fines in July 2025, and in December 2025 and January 2026 fined Ecuador's football federation and its professional football league six-figure sums over a biometric fan identification app. Telecoms and banking regulators enforce in their own lanes.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is a ceiling and a floor, and they are set in different places. The ceiling: keep personal data no longer than you need it for the purpose you collected it for, and delete it within fifteen days when someone validly asks. The floor: tax books and supporting documents must be kept for as long as the tax authority can still assess you, which is three years from filing or six years if you filed late or not at all. Where a law says keep it, keeping it wins.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Two clocks, and the shorter one points at your customers, not the regulator. You have five working days to tell the privacy regulator about a security breach. You have only three working days to tell the people affected, if the breach puts their rights at risk. Telecoms companies must tell their sector regulator as well. A third clock is being built: the new cybersecurity law is in force but its reporting deadlines have not been set yet.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that will cost you a weekend. One: you have less time to warn customers than to warn the regulator. Two: you must file your processing with the regulator within ten days of starting it, and file each transfer abroad ten days before it happens. Three: whether you need a data protection officer is decided by headcount — one hundred employees — not by how risky your processing is. Four: a foreign company with no registered local attorney can find that whoever seems to act for it locally carries the blame. Five: fines are a slice of your Ecuadorian turnover, and because Ecuador uses the US dollar there is no currency cushion.High confidence
What's about to change?: Three things to watch in the next twelve months. The cybersecurity law passed in May 2026 still needs its detailed rules, and the national incident response team must exist by May 2027. The twelve-month grace period for transfers already running ends in early 2027. And the privacy regulator has draft rules out on breach reporting and on biometric data. The biggest single unknown is that the list of approved destination countries is empty and can be filled at any time.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: Banking — Registro de Datos Crediticios

AlgeriaChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: Data can leave Algeria, but not freely. Every transfer abroad needs the national data protection authority's permission unless a listed exception applies, and breaking that rule is a crime carrying prison. Since July 2025 every organisation must have a data protection officer, a processing register and an automatic log of every operation. The regulator is staffed but has issued no known decisions.
The catch: The national rule is already strict, and three areas are stricter still. Online shops must run their site on servers inside Algeria under a .com.dz address. Electronic trust services, such as digital signatures and electronic identity, must host all the data they collect inside Algeria. Public bodies must exchange data only over a state-run network that is deliberately kept separate from the internet. Banking, insurance and securities have no storage rule that we could find, but the central bank's own website could not be reached, so treat that as unchecked rather than settled.
Does this apply to me?: Yes, it can reach a company with no office in Algeria, but the trigger is equipment, not customers. You are covered if you are set up in Algeria, or if you use any means of processing located in Algeria, such as servers or devices. In that second case you must tell the regulator the name of a representative based in Algeria, and that person takes on your rights and duties. There is no size or revenue threshold to fall below.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with permission or a listed excuse. The starting rule is that you may only send personal data to another country if the national data protection authority allows it and that country protects privacy well enough. There is a short list of exceptions that most businesses will rely on instead, such as the person's express consent or a transfer that is needed to carry out their contract. Two things are banned outright: transfers that could harm public safety or the state's vital interests, and any processing of sensitive data such as health, religion, politics or trade union membership unless a narrow exception applies.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is case by case. Before data goes abroad you need the national data protection authority to authorise it, and the destination country must protect privacy well enough in the authority's judgement. There is no published list of approved countries and no official standard contract you can sign instead. In practice most companies rely on the written exceptions: the person's express consent, a transfer needed for their contract, a court claim, saving someone's life, an important public interest, an international mutual legal assistance request, medical care, or a treaty Algeria has signed.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The national data protection authority, and it does exist in real life. Fifteen members, including a president, were appointed by presidential decree on 18 May 2022 for five years, a new president was appointed in October 2023, and the authority has its own staff, pay scales, an executive secretariat, an official bulletin and internal committees. Its president was still signing published decisions in August 2025. What is missing is enforcement: in four years the official gazette shows only housekeeping texts from the authority, and no fine, order or filing procedure. Treat it as awake but not yet biting.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is a floor and a ceiling, and the floor is the one people miss. Accounting books and the paperwork behind them must be kept for ten years after the end of each financial year. Telephone and internet providers must keep the data that identifies users and their connections for one year. Online sellers must keep records of every transaction and send them to the national trade register centre. The ceiling is that personal data must not be kept in a form that identifies people for longer than the purpose needs, and keeping it too long is a crime.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There is no seventy-two hour clock here, and the five-day deadline people quote is not for ordinary businesses. If you provide a service over a public electronic communications network and data is destroyed, lost, altered, disclosed or accessed without permission, you must warn the authority and the affected person straight away, with no fixed number of hours. Failing to do that is a crime punishable by one to three years in prison. The five-day deadline added in July 2025 applies to police, prosecutors, courts and prison services, not to a normal company.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that cost people their weekend. One: this is a criminal regime. Sending data abroad in breach of the rule is punished by one to five years in prison and a fine of up to one million dinars, roughly seven thousand seven hundred US dollars, and prison can attach to individuals. Two: since 24 July 2025 every organisation must appoint a data protection officer, keep a written register of processing and keep an automatic log recording every collection, consultation, disclosure and deletion, with no exemption for small companies. Three: sensitive data is banned by default, and consent must be express, so silence or a pre-ticked box is worth nothing. Four: anything to do with national defence and security now sits completely outside the law, so there is no privacy protection to point to there. Five: a 2021 ordinance makes it a crime to disclose classified administrative documents, it reaches acts committed outside Algeria against the Algerian state, and it can force any person to hand over stored data.High confidence
What's about to change?: Three things to watch in the next twelve months. The five-year terms of the data protection authority's members, appointed on 18 May 2022, run out in May 2027, so appointments are due. The regional inspection and audit units created for the authority in July 2025 still need an implementing regulation before inspectors can appear at your door. And the rules that switch on the new government data framework, two reference documents on classifying data and cataloguing data sources, can be published by a single decision of the High Commission for Digitalisation, at which point every public body and every company running a public service must classify and catalogue its data.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Telecoms — Loi n° 26-02 fixant les regles generales relatives aux services de confiance pour les transactions electroniques et a l'identification electronique
E-commerce — Loi n° 18-05 relative au commerce electronique
Government — Decret presidentiel n° 25-320 portant mise en place d'un dispositif national de gouvernance des donnees

The same eight topics answered for each selected country
Question	EcuadorChecked 19 August 2026	AlgeriaChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Waking up
In one paragraph	Ecuador lets personal data leave the country, but only with paperwork. You need one of a short list of approved routes, and you must register each transfer with the regulator at least ten days before it happens. No country has yet been declared safe to send data to. The privacy regulator opened in 2024, is fully staffed, and issued its first six-figure fines in December 2025.	Data can leave Algeria, but not freely. Every transfer abroad needs the national data protection authority's permission unless a listed exception applies, and breaking that rule is a crime carrying prison. Since July 2025 every organisation must have a data protection officer, a processing register and an automatic log of every operation. The regulator is staffed but has issued no known decisions.
The catch	No Ecuadorian industry forces data to physically stay in the country — we searched banking, payments, insurance, securities, health, telecoms, government cloud and mapping and found no storage-location rule. The catch is different and applies to everyone: you must register your processing with the regulator within ten days of starting it, and register every outbound transfer ten days before it happens. One genuine sector wall exists — credit-reference data on Ecuadorians may only be held and supplied by the banking regulator, so a private credit bureau cannot operate at all.	The national rule is already strict, and three areas are stricter still. Online shops must run their site on servers inside Algeria under a .com.dz address. Electronic trust services, such as digital signatures and electronic identity, must host all the data they collect inside Algeria. Public bodies must exchange data only over a state-run network that is deliberately kept separate from the internet. Banking, insurance and securities have no storage rule that we could find, but the central bank's own website could not be reached, so treat that as unchecked rather than settled.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. The law reaches a company with no office in Ecuador if it offers goods or services to people living in Ecuador, or watches what they do there. There is no size or revenue threshold to hide behind. A foreign company caught this way must appoint a special attorney who actually lives in Ecuador and register that person with the regulator.High confidence	Yes, it can reach a company with no office in Algeria, but the trigger is equipment, not customers. You are covered if you are set up in Algeria, or if you use any means of processing located in Algeria, such as servers or devices. In that second case you must tell the regulator the name of a representative based in Algeria, and that person takes on your rights and duties. There is no size or revenue threshold to fall below.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	Yes, with conditions — this is a European-style regime, not an open one. Data may only go abroad through an approved route, and you must tell the regulator before it goes. We looked hard for industries that force data to stay inside Ecuador and found none: banking, payments, insurance, securities, health, telecoms, government cloud and mapping all lack a storage-location rule. The one real wall is credit-reference data, which only the banking regulator may hold.High confidence	Yes, with permission or a listed excuse. The starting rule is that you may only send personal data to another country if the national data protection authority allows it and that country protects privacy well enough. There is a short list of exceptions that most businesses will rely on instead, such as the person's express consent or a transfer that is needed to carry out their contract. Two things are banned outright: transfers that could harm public safety or the state's vital interests, and any processing of sensitive data such as health, religion, politics or trade union membership unless a narrow exception applies.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	Think allowlist, not blocklist: a transfer is not allowed unless you can name the route you are using. The routes are an official finding that the destination is safe, a set of approved standard contract clauses, approved group-wide rules, an approved industry code, or a one-off permission. No country has been declared safe yet, so in practice almost everyone uses the standard clauses. You must also register the transfer with the regulator at least ten days before it happens.High confidence	The model is case by case. Before data goes abroad you need the national data protection authority to authorise it, and the destination country must protect privacy well enough in the authority's judgement. There is no published list of approved countries and no official standard contract you can sign instead. In practice most companies rely on the written exceptions: the person's express consent, a transfer needed for their contract, a court claim, saving someone's life, an important public interest, an international mutual legal assistance request, medical care, or a treaty Algeria has signed.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	The Superintendency of Personal Data Protection, and yes, it is genuinely working. It opened in April 2024 under Superintendent Fabrizio Peralta Diaz, finished hiring its roughly thirty-three staff by October 2024, published a formula for calculating fines in July 2025, and in December 2025 and January 2026 fined Ecuador's football federation and its professional football league six-figure sums over a biometric fan identification app. Telecoms and banking regulators enforce in their own lanes.High confidence	The national data protection authority, and it does exist in real life. Fifteen members, including a president, were appointed by presidential decree on 18 May 2022 for five years, a new president was appointed in October 2023, and the authority has its own staff, pay scales, an executive secretariat, an official bulletin and internal committees. Its president was still signing published decisions in August 2025. What is missing is enforcement: in four years the official gazette shows only housekeeping texts from the authority, and no fine, order or filing procedure. Treat it as awake but not yet biting.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	There is a ceiling and a floor, and they are set in different places. The ceiling: keep personal data no longer than you need it for the purpose you collected it for, and delete it within fifteen days when someone validly asks. The floor: tax books and supporting documents must be kept for as long as the tax authority can still assess you, which is three years from filing or six years if you filed late or not at all. Where a law says keep it, keeping it wins.Medium confidence	There is a floor and a ceiling, and the floor is the one people miss. Accounting books and the paperwork behind them must be kept for ten years after the end of each financial year. Telephone and internet providers must keep the data that identifies users and their connections for one year. Online sellers must keep records of every transaction and send them to the national trade register centre. The ceiling is that personal data must not be kept in a form that identifies people for longer than the purpose needs, and keeping it too long is a crime.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	Two clocks, and the shorter one points at your customers, not the regulator. You have five working days to tell the privacy regulator about a security breach. You have only three working days to tell the people affected, if the breach puts their rights at risk. Telecoms companies must tell their sector regulator as well. A third clock is being built: the new cybersecurity law is in force but its reporting deadlines have not been set yet.High confidence	There is no seventy-two hour clock here, and the five-day deadline people quote is not for ordinary businesses. If you provide a service over a public electronic communications network and data is destroyed, lost, altered, disclosed or accessed without permission, you must warn the authority and the affected person straight away, with no fixed number of hours. Failing to do that is a crime punishable by one to three years in prison. The five-day deadline added in July 2025 applies to police, prosecutors, courts and prison services, not to a normal company.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five things that will cost you a weekend. One: you have less time to warn customers than to warn the regulator. Two: you must file your processing with the regulator within ten days of starting it, and file each transfer abroad ten days before it happens. Three: whether you need a data protection officer is decided by headcount — one hundred employees — not by how risky your processing is. Four: a foreign company with no registered local attorney can find that whoever seems to act for it locally carries the blame. Five: fines are a slice of your Ecuadorian turnover, and because Ecuador uses the US dollar there is no currency cushion.High confidence	Five things that cost people their weekend. One: this is a criminal regime. Sending data abroad in breach of the rule is punished by one to five years in prison and a fine of up to one million dinars, roughly seven thousand seven hundred US dollars, and prison can attach to individuals. Two: since 24 July 2025 every organisation must appoint a data protection officer, keep a written register of processing and keep an automatic log recording every collection, consultation, disclosure and deletion, with no exemption for small companies. Three: sensitive data is banned by default, and consent must be express, so silence or a pre-ticked box is worth nothing. Four: anything to do with national defence and security now sits completely outside the law, so there is no privacy protection to point to there. Five: a 2021 ordinance makes it a crime to disclose classified administrative documents, it reaches acts committed outside Algeria against the Algerian state, and it can force any person to hand over stored data.High confidence
What's about to change?	Three things to watch in the next twelve months. The cybersecurity law passed in May 2026 still needs its detailed rules, and the national incident response team must exist by May 2027. The twelve-month grace period for transfers already running ends in early 2027. And the privacy regulator has draft rules out on breach reporting and on biometric data. The biggest single unknown is that the list of approved destination countries is empty and can be filled at any time.Medium confidence	Three things to watch in the next twelve months. The five-year terms of the data protection authority's members, appointed on 18 May 2022, run out in May 2027, so appointments are due. The regional inspection and audit units created for the authority in July 2025 still need an implementing regulation before inspectors can appear at your door. And the rules that switch on the new government data framework, two reference documents on classifying data and cataloguing data sources, can be published by a single decision of the High Commission for Digitalisation, at which point every public body and every company running a public service must classify and catalogue its data.High confidence
Hardest industry wall	Banking — Registro de Datos Crediticios	Telecoms — Loi n° 26-02 fixant les regles generales relatives aux services de confiance pour les transactions electroniques et a l'identification electronique E-commerce — Loi n° 18-05 relative au commerce electronique Government — Decret presidentiel n° 25-320 portant mise en place d'un dispositif national de gouvernance des donnees