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

Countries

CambodiaChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: LowEnforcement: Dormant

In one paragraph: Cambodia has no general privacy law. A bill exists and went to a public review meeting in August 2026, but it is not law and there is no privacy regulator to complain to. For most businesses data can leave the country freely, with no paperwork. Banks and other lenders are the big exception: their main data centre must sit inside Cambodia.
The catch: The relaxed headline stops at the door of the financial sector. Any bank or lender supervised by Cambodia's central bank must keep at least one main data centre inside the country, and must get the central bank's permission in advance before customer personal data is moved to or hosted on servers abroad. Telecoms are also watched closely by an active regulator, and a suspended 2021 order that would push all internet traffic through a single government-controlled gateway can be switched back on at any time.
Does this apply to me?: There is no general data protection law in Cambodia, so there is nothing for a foreign company to be caught by. No size threshold, no revenue threshold, no registration, and no requirement to appoint someone in Cambodia to answer for your data. That changes the moment you need a local licence: banks, lenders and telecoms operators are licensed here and their licence conditions do reach their overseas systems. A draft privacy law was put to a validation workshop on 5 August 2026 and will proceed through the formal law-making process, so this answer has a shelf life.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general, yes, and with nothing to sign. Cambodia has no rule that stops ordinary personal data leaving the country. Finance is the one hard wall we could verify: a bank or lender supervised by the central bank must have at least one main data centre in Cambodia, may only use a foreign data centre as a backup, and needs the central bank's approval before customer personal data is hosted abroad. Telecoms is the sector to watch, because a 2021 order that would route all internet traffic through a single national gateway was never switched on but was never cancelled either.Medium confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: For most organisations, nothing at all. There is no approved-countries list, no banned-countries list, no standard contract to sign and no government form to file. The lists are not just empty, they do not exist, because there is no law that creates them. In finance the model is completely different: each move of customer personal data out of Cambodia needs its own approval from the central bank, decided case by case, and there is no published application process or timetable.Medium confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: For privacy, nobody. Cambodia has no data protection authority. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications is writing the law and, in November 2025, ran a training workshop with Singapore's privacy regulator on how to build such an authority, which tells you plainly that one does not yet exist. Sector regulators are a different story and are genuinely working: the central bank supervises financial firms against its 2026 technology guidelines, and the telecoms regulator publicly named an operator in June 2026 for selling SIM cards without properly checking customers' identity documents.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is a floor and almost no ceiling. Tax and accounting law forces businesses to keep books and supporting documents for years, and financial firms must keep system logs and agree retention periods with their cloud providers. In the other direction there is no general rule telling anyone to delete personal data, because there is no privacy law. The only deletion duty we could verify applies to banks and lenders, who must keep customer personal data only as long as it is needed.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There is no breach reporting clock in Cambodia. No law requires you to tell a regulator or the affected people when personal data leaks, and there is no national cyber incident hotline with a deadline in hours. The nearest thing is in banking: the central bank tells supervised firms to report incidents as it requires, either on a regular cycle or one-off, with no fixed number of hours. Two draft laws would change this, so treat today's silence as temporary.Medium confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in the summary. First, the e-commerce law reportedly bans encryption that would stop evidence being used in a criminal case, which cuts across normal end-to-end encryption promises. Second, a cloud-only bank cannot operate here: the main data centre must physically be in Cambodia. Third, moving customer banking data abroad needs the central bank's permission in advance, and there is no published process or timetable, so it must be planned months ahead. Fourth, telecoms operators must check identity documents before activating a SIM card, and the regulator names offenders in public. Fifth, no privacy law does not mean no risk, because your foreign customers will impose their own rules by contract.Medium confidence
What's about to change?: Four drafts are moving and none of them is law yet. The Personal Data Protection Law reached a validation workshop on 5 August 2026 and now heads into the formal law-making process. The Cybersecurity Law was still being argued over with the Ministry of Justice in July 2026. A Data Governance Policy for 2026 to 2035 was in consultation in March 2026 and is expected to cover where data may be stored and how it may cross borders. A Digital Government Law went to consultation in July 2025. No commencement date has been announced for any of them.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Finance — Technology and Cyber Risk Management Guidelines (TCRMG)

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	CambodiaChecked 18 August 2026	SwedenChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Depends on your industry Work: Low Enforcement: Dormant	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	Cambodia has no general privacy law. A bill exists and went to a public review meeting in August 2026, but it is not law and there is no privacy regulator to complain to. For most businesses data can leave the country freely, with no paperwork. Banks and other lenders are the big exception: their main data centre must sit inside Cambodia.	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 at the door of the financial sector. Any bank or lender supervised by Cambodia's central bank must keep at least one main data centre inside the country, and must get the central bank's permission in advance before customer personal data is moved to or hosted on servers abroad. Telecoms are also watched closely by an active regulator, and a suspended 2021 order that would push all internet traffic through a single government-controlled gateway can be switched back on at any time.	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?	There is no general data protection law in Cambodia, so there is nothing for a foreign company to be caught by. No size threshold, no revenue threshold, no registration, and no requirement to appoint someone in Cambodia to answer for your data. That changes the moment you need a local licence: banks, lenders and telecoms operators are licensed here and their licence conditions do reach their overseas systems. A draft privacy law was put to a validation workshop on 5 August 2026 and will proceed through the formal law-making process, so this answer has a shelf life.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?	In general, yes, and with nothing to sign. Cambodia has no rule that stops ordinary personal data leaving the country. Finance is the one hard wall we could verify: a bank or lender supervised by the central bank must have at least one main data centre in Cambodia, may only use a foreign data centre as a backup, and needs the central bank's approval before customer personal data is hosted abroad. Telecoms is the sector to watch, because a 2021 order that would route all internet traffic through a single national gateway was never switched on but was never cancelled either.Medium 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?	For most organisations, nothing at all. There is no approved-countries list, no banned-countries list, no standard contract to sign and no government form to file. The lists are not just empty, they do not exist, because there is no law that creates them. In finance the model is completely different: each move of customer personal data out of Cambodia needs its own approval from the central bank, decided case by case, and there is no published application process or timetable.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?	For privacy, nobody. Cambodia has no data protection authority. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications is writing the law and, in November 2025, ran a training workshop with Singapore's privacy regulator on how to build such an authority, which tells you plainly that one does not yet exist. Sector regulators are a different story and are genuinely working: the central bank supervises financial firms against its 2026 technology guidelines, and the telecoms regulator publicly named an operator in June 2026 for selling SIM cards without properly checking customers' identity documents.High 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?	There is a floor and almost no ceiling. Tax and accounting law forces businesses to keep books and supporting documents for years, and financial firms must keep system logs and agree retention periods with their cloud providers. In the other direction there is no general rule telling anyone to delete personal data, because there is no privacy law. The only deletion duty we could verify applies to banks and lenders, who must keep customer personal data only as long as it is needed.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?	There is no breach reporting clock in Cambodia. No law requires you to tell a regulator or the affected people when personal data leaks, and there is no national cyber incident hotline with a deadline in hours. The nearest thing is in banking: the central bank tells supervised firms to report incidents as it requires, either on a regular cycle or one-off, with no fixed number of hours. Two draft laws would change this, so treat today's silence as temporary.Medium 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 things that are not in the summary. First, the e-commerce law reportedly bans encryption that would stop evidence being used in a criminal case, which cuts across normal end-to-end encryption promises. Second, a cloud-only bank cannot operate here: the main data centre must physically be in Cambodia. Third, moving customer banking data abroad needs the central bank's permission in advance, and there is no published process or timetable, so it must be planned months ahead. Fourth, telecoms operators must check identity documents before activating a SIM card, and the regulator names offenders in public. Fifth, no privacy law does not mean no risk, because your foreign customers will impose their own rules by contract.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?	Four drafts are moving and none of them is law yet. The Personal Data Protection Law reached a validation workshop on 5 August 2026 and now heads into the formal law-making process. The Cybersecurity Law was still being argued over with the Ministry of Justice in July 2026. A Data Governance Policy for 2026 to 2035 was in consultation in March 2026 and is expected to cover where data may be stored and how it may cross borders. A Digital Government Law went to consultation in July 2025. No commencement date has been announced for any of them.High 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	Finance — Technology and Cyber Risk Management Guidelines (TCRMG)	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)