Compare countries

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

Countries

GeorgiaChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: Georgia copied the European model in 2023: data can leave the country, but only to a destination the supervisor has approved, or with a permit, or under a narrow exception. There is no general rule forcing data to stay. The big change is who is in charge — on 2 March 2026 the independent privacy watchdog was replaced by the State Audit Office, and we could not verify that it has issued a single decision since.
The catch: Two things break the calm headline. Telephone and internet connection records are copied into a state-held database inside Georgia, so telecoms cannot treat that data as ordinary business data. And the same State Audit Office that now polices privacy also runs the public register of foreign-funded organisations.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. The law catches a company with no office in Georgia if it uses technical means located in Georgia to handle people's data. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to duck under. Worse, a foreign company in that position must appoint a representative in Georgia and register that person with the supervisor BEFORE it starts processing — the only escape is being based in the European Union or in a country the European Union has already approved.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with paperwork. Data may go abroad if the destination country has been judged to give good enough protection, or if the supervisor grants a permit for the contract you have signed, or under a short list of narrow exceptions such as the person's written consent after being told the risks. Nothing in the general law forces data to stay in Georgia. The one place data really does stay is telecoms: a copy of who called whom, and when, sits in a state-run database inside the country.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is an approved-destinations list, with a permit as the back-up. The supervisor decides which countries offer good enough protection and publishes that decision as a formal act; if your destination is not on it, you need a permit for your contract, or you fall back on a narrow exception such as written consent. We could not find the current published list, so we cannot tell you today which countries are on it — treat that as the single biggest open question in this record.Medium confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: This is where Georgia surprises people. Until 1 March 2026 the job belonged to the Personal Data Protection Service, an independent watchdog. From 2 March 2026 the law hands the same job to the State Audit Office — the body that audits government spending — and its head, the Auditor General, now signs the privacy rules. We can prove the handover happened, because the Auditor General reissued two of the privacy rulebooks at the end of March 2026. We could not find a single enforcement decision published since the handover.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: The ceiling is clear: keep personal data only as long as you need it for the purpose you collected it for, then erase, destroy or strip out the identifying parts, unless another law tells you to keep it. The floors are scattered across tax, accounting and sector laws that we could not open on an official site today. In telecoms the direction is reversed — the content of a call or message must be destroyed at once, while the record of who contacted whom can be copied into a state database and kept for a period set by a separate law.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Two clocks. If personal data is lost, leaked or wrongly handled, you have 72 hours from spotting it to tell the supervisor, and you must keep your own record of the incident and what you did about it. If you run a system the government has listed as critical to the country, you must tell the national computer emergency response team immediately — no fixed number of hours, which in practice means the same day. If both apply to you, both run at once.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five. First, the regulator changed identity on 2 March 2026, so a privacy notice or contract naming the Personal Data Protection Service now points at a body the law no longer mentions. Second, a foreign company must register a representative in Georgia before it starts, not after. Third, a child is anyone under 16, so a European sign-up flow tuned to 13 will be wrong here. Fourth, direct marketing always needs consent, even if you bought the list lawfully. Fifth, the same State Audit Office that now polices privacy also runs the public register of foreign-funded organisations, which must publish detailed information about themselves.Medium confidence
What's about to change?: Nothing new is scheduled to start in the privacy law itself — we checked the current text on 18 August 2026 and found no provisions waiting on a future date. The live story is the handover: the Auditor General is reissuing the four rulebooks inherited from the old watchdog, and two of the four were reissued in March 2026. The rest of the risk sits in switches the government can already flip without a new law.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: Telecoms — საქართველოს კანონი ელექტრონული კომუნიკაციების შესახებ

SwedenChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Sweden has no general law forcing data to stay in the country. Personal data leaves under the ordinary European rules. But four walls override that: gambling systems must sit in Sweden, telecoms records kept for the police may never leave the European Union, classified material needs a state-to-state deal, and accounting books stay in Sweden unless you tell the tax agency.
The catch: The relaxed headline stops being true the moment you touch online gambling, telecoms records held for law enforcement, security-sensitive activity, detailed maps and sea-depth data, a public authority's secret files, or a Swedish company's accounting books. In those six areas Sweden is far stricter than its reputation suggests, and two of them carry prison sentences rather than fines.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. Sweden applies the European privacy rules, so a company anywhere in the world is caught if it offers goods or services to people in Sweden or watches what they do. There is no size or revenue floor to duck under. Sweden's own top-up law adds Swedish-only duties on top, and those apply to anyone processing data under Swedish law, not just Swedish companies. If you are outside Europe and caught, you normally have to name a representative inside Europe.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general, yes. Sweden has no law that says personal data must physically stay in Sweden, and European law actually bans Sweden from imposing storage rules on non-personal data except for national security reasons. The exceptions are what matter. Online gambling systems must be placed in Sweden. Telephone and internet records that operators keep for the police may not be stored outside the European Union. Security-classified material cannot go to a foreign body without a government-to-government agreement. And a Swedish company's accounting records must be kept in Sweden unless it tells the tax agency where they are instead.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Sweden adds nothing of its own here — it uses the European toolkit unchanged. The model is an allowlist of approved destinations, and that list is well populated: the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Brazil and about a dozen others are approved. For everywhere else you sign the European Commission's standard contract, or use group-wide rules approved by a regulator, and you write down why you think the data will still be safe. United States transfers work only if the receiving company has signed up to the European Union–United States Data Privacy Framework, and that arrangement is under legal pressure.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The main privacy regulator is the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection, and it is fully staffed and working. It published supervisory decisions in May, June and July 2026, including a reprimand to a large security company over filming its own staff, and in June 2026 it was also made Sweden's market surveillance authority for the European artificial intelligence rules. Other regulators matter just as much in their own lanes: the financial supervisor, the telecoms and post authority, the gambling authority, the Security Service and the Armed Forces.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Sweden has a hard floor and a soft ceiling, and they pull in opposite directions. You must keep company accounting records for seven years after the end of the year they relate to, and patient records for at least ten years after the last entry. Against that, European privacy law says you must delete personal data once you no longer need it. Sweden resolves the clash the same way most of Europe does: a specific legal duty to keep something beats the general duty to delete it, so you keep it, lock it down and use it for nothing else.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count at least three clocks, and they do not agree. For a personal data breach you have 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator, and you must tell the affected people without undue delay if the risk to them is high. Since 15 January 2026, organisations in important sectors must send an early warning to their cybersecurity supervisor within 24 hours of noticing a significant incident, then a fuller report within 72 hours — but trust service providers get only 24 hours for the full report. Financial firms have a fourth clock under the European digital resilience rules. The 24-hour warning is the one that catches people out.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in any summary. One: a child can consent from age 13 in Sweden, the youngest age Europe allows, so a global default of 16 is wrong here. Two: you may only use a person's Swedish identity number without their consent when it is clearly justified — a Swedish-only rule with no European equivalent. Three: anything you send to a Swedish public authority can become a public document that any member of the public, including a competitor or a journalist, can demand a copy of. Four: giving a supplier access to a public authority's secret files is allowed only for purely technical processing or storage, and only if it is not inappropriate in the circumstances — the ordinary supplier contract is not enough. Five: mapping and sea-depth data is criminal law, not paperwork — spreading it without a permit can mean up to a year in prison.High confidence
What's about to change?: Two dated items. On 1 January 2027 a new law on the resilience of critical operators is proposed to start, covering eleven sectors and adding another 24-hour incident report. Also on 12 January 2027, European rules make it illegal for cloud providers to charge you to move your data out. Watch the government's national cloud policy, adopted on 28 May 2026: today it is only advice with no penalties, but it is the obvious vehicle for a future rule that public bodies must use European providers.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Telecoms — Förordning (2022:511) om elektronisk kommunikation, 9 kap. 4 §
Online gaming — Spellagen (2018:1138), 16 kap. 2 §
Defence — Säkerhetsskyddslagen (2018:585) och Säkerhetsskyddsförordningen (2021:955)

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	GeorgiaChecked 18 August 2026	SwedenChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Waking up	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	Georgia copied the European model in 2023: data can leave the country, but only to a destination the supervisor has approved, or with a permit, or under a narrow exception. There is no general rule forcing data to stay. The big change is who is in charge — on 2 March 2026 the independent privacy watchdog was replaced by the State Audit Office, and we could not verify that it has issued a single decision since.	Sweden has no general law forcing data to stay in the country. Personal data leaves under the ordinary European rules. But four walls override that: gambling systems must sit in Sweden, telecoms records kept for the police may never leave the European Union, classified material needs a state-to-state deal, and accounting books stay in Sweden unless you tell the tax agency.
The catch	Two things break the calm headline. Telephone and internet connection records are copied into a state-held database inside Georgia, so telecoms cannot treat that data as ordinary business data. And the same State Audit Office that now polices privacy also runs the public register of foreign-funded organisations.	The relaxed headline stops being true the moment you touch online gambling, telecoms records held for law enforcement, security-sensitive activity, detailed maps and sea-depth data, a public authority's secret files, or a Swedish company's accounting books. In those six areas Sweden is far stricter than its reputation suggests, and two of them carry prison sentences rather than fines.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. The law catches a company with no office in Georgia if it uses technical means located in Georgia to handle people's data. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to duck under. Worse, a foreign company in that position must appoint a representative in Georgia and register that person with the supervisor BEFORE it starts processing — the only escape is being based in the European Union or in a country the European Union has already approved.High confidence	Yes. Sweden applies the European privacy rules, so a company anywhere in the world is caught if it offers goods or services to people in Sweden or watches what they do. There is no size or revenue floor to duck under. Sweden's own top-up law adds Swedish-only duties on top, and those apply to anyone processing data under Swedish law, not just Swedish companies. If you are outside Europe and caught, you normally have to name a representative inside Europe.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	Yes, with paperwork. Data may go abroad if the destination country has been judged to give good enough protection, or if the supervisor grants a permit for the contract you have signed, or under a short list of narrow exceptions such as the person's written consent after being told the risks. Nothing in the general law forces data to stay in Georgia. The one place data really does stay is telecoms: a copy of who called whom, and when, sits in a state-run database inside the country.High confidence	In general, yes. Sweden has no law that says personal data must physically stay in Sweden, and European law actually bans Sweden from imposing storage rules on non-personal data except for national security reasons. The exceptions are what matter. Online gambling systems must be placed in Sweden. Telephone and internet records that operators keep for the police may not be stored outside the European Union. Security-classified material cannot go to a foreign body without a government-to-government agreement. And a Swedish company's accounting records must be kept in Sweden unless it tells the tax agency where they are instead.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	The model is an approved-destinations list, with a permit as the back-up. The supervisor decides which countries offer good enough protection and publishes that decision as a formal act; if your destination is not on it, you need a permit for your contract, or you fall back on a narrow exception such as written consent. We could not find the current published list, so we cannot tell you today which countries are on it — treat that as the single biggest open question in this record.Medium confidence	Sweden adds nothing of its own here — it uses the European toolkit unchanged. The model is an allowlist of approved destinations, and that list is well populated: the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Brazil and about a dozen others are approved. For everywhere else you sign the European Commission's standard contract, or use group-wide rules approved by a regulator, and you write down why you think the data will still be safe. United States transfers work only if the receiving company has signed up to the European Union–United States Data Privacy Framework, and that arrangement is under legal pressure.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	This is where Georgia surprises people. Until 1 March 2026 the job belonged to the Personal Data Protection Service, an independent watchdog. From 2 March 2026 the law hands the same job to the State Audit Office — the body that audits government spending — and its head, the Auditor General, now signs the privacy rules. We can prove the handover happened, because the Auditor General reissued two of the privacy rulebooks at the end of March 2026. We could not find a single enforcement decision published since the handover.Medium confidence	The main privacy regulator is the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection, and it is fully staffed and working. It published supervisory decisions in May, June and July 2026, including a reprimand to a large security company over filming its own staff, and in June 2026 it was also made Sweden's market surveillance authority for the European artificial intelligence rules. Other regulators matter just as much in their own lanes: the financial supervisor, the telecoms and post authority, the gambling authority, the Security Service and the Armed Forces.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	The ceiling is clear: keep personal data only as long as you need it for the purpose you collected it for, then erase, destroy or strip out the identifying parts, unless another law tells you to keep it. The floors are scattered across tax, accounting and sector laws that we could not open on an official site today. In telecoms the direction is reversed — the content of a call or message must be destroyed at once, while the record of who contacted whom can be copied into a state database and kept for a period set by a separate law.Medium confidence	Sweden has a hard floor and a soft ceiling, and they pull in opposite directions. You must keep company accounting records for seven years after the end of the year they relate to, and patient records for at least ten years after the last entry. Against that, European privacy law says you must delete personal data once you no longer need it. Sweden resolves the clash the same way most of Europe does: a specific legal duty to keep something beats the general duty to delete it, so you keep it, lock it down and use it for nothing else.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	Two clocks. If personal data is lost, leaked or wrongly handled, you have 72 hours from spotting it to tell the supervisor, and you must keep your own record of the incident and what you did about it. If you run a system the government has listed as critical to the country, you must tell the national computer emergency response team immediately — no fixed number of hours, which in practice means the same day. If both apply to you, both run at once.High confidence	Count at least three clocks, and they do not agree. For a personal data breach you have 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator, and you must tell the affected people without undue delay if the risk to them is high. Since 15 January 2026, organisations in important sectors must send an early warning to their cybersecurity supervisor within 24 hours of noticing a significant incident, then a fuller report within 72 hours — but trust service providers get only 24 hours for the full report. Financial firms have a fourth clock under the European digital resilience rules. The 24-hour warning is the one that catches people out.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five. First, the regulator changed identity on 2 March 2026, so a privacy notice or contract naming the Personal Data Protection Service now points at a body the law no longer mentions. Second, a foreign company must register a representative in Georgia before it starts, not after. Third, a child is anyone under 16, so a European sign-up flow tuned to 13 will be wrong here. Fourth, direct marketing always needs consent, even if you bought the list lawfully. Fifth, the same State Audit Office that now polices privacy also runs the public register of foreign-funded organisations, which must publish detailed information about themselves.Medium confidence	Five things that are not in any summary. One: a child can consent from age 13 in Sweden, the youngest age Europe allows, so a global default of 16 is wrong here. Two: you may only use a person's Swedish identity number without their consent when it is clearly justified — a Swedish-only rule with no European equivalent. Three: anything you send to a Swedish public authority can become a public document that any member of the public, including a competitor or a journalist, can demand a copy of. Four: giving a supplier access to a public authority's secret files is allowed only for purely technical processing or storage, and only if it is not inappropriate in the circumstances — the ordinary supplier contract is not enough. Five: mapping and sea-depth data is criminal law, not paperwork — spreading it without a permit can mean up to a year in prison.High confidence
What's about to change?	Nothing new is scheduled to start in the privacy law itself — we checked the current text on 18 August 2026 and found no provisions waiting on a future date. The live story is the handover: the Auditor General is reissuing the four rulebooks inherited from the old watchdog, and two of the four were reissued in March 2026. The rest of the risk sits in switches the government can already flip without a new law.Medium confidence	Two dated items. On 1 January 2027 a new law on the resilience of critical operators is proposed to start, covering eleven sectors and adding another 24-hour incident report. Also on 12 January 2027, European rules make it illegal for cloud providers to charge you to move your data out. Watch the government's national cloud policy, adopted on 28 May 2026: today it is only advice with no penalties, but it is the obvious vehicle for a future rule that public bodies must use European providers.High confidence
Hardest industry wall	Telecoms — საქართველოს კანონი ელექტრონული კომუნიკაციების შესახებ	Telecoms — Förordning (2022:511) om elektronisk kommunikation, 9 kap. 4 § Online gaming — Spellagen (2018:1138), 16 kap. 2 § Defence — Säkerhetsskyddslagen (2018:585) och Säkerhetsskyddsförordningen (2021:955)