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

Countries

South KoreaChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: HighEnforcement: Aggressive

In one paragraph: South Korea's privacy law bans sending personal data abroad unless you have one of five grounds. The usual one is a separate consent, ticked apart from every other consent. Since September 2025 the 30 European countries need no extra paperwork. But banking, health records, government cloud and detailed maps have hard walls no consent can unlock, and the regulator fines foreign companies often.
The catch: The 'get consent and send it' headline stops being true the moment you touch six areas: bank and payment systems, financial customers' national ID numbers, hospital records, government cloud, detailed mapping data, and personal location services. In those areas the data or the machine holding it must physically sit in South Korea, and in the government cloud case so must the people who run it.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. The regulator fines companies with no Korean office. In July 2026 it fined TikTok's Singapore company and two Apple companies based in Ireland and Singapore for collecting Korean users' data and sending it abroad without a proper legal basis. If your worldwide revenue was 1 trillion won (about $720 million) or more last year, or you held data on an average of 1 million or more people in Korea per day over the last three months of last year, you must appoint a representative in Korea. Since April 2026, if you already own or control a Korean company, that Korean company has to be the representative.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general yes, but only if you have one of five grounds, and the usual one is a separate consent that the person ticks apart from every other consent. Since September 2025 you can also send data to the 27 European Union countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein with no extra step at all, because the regulator has formally accepted their protection as equal to Korea's. That is the only such list, and no other country is on it. Six industries override all of this and are covered below.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Korea does not police the destination. It polices your paperwork. There is no banned-country list and no approval application to file: you pick one of the five grounds, and for most companies that means asking each person for a separate transfer consent that lists what goes, where, to whom, for how long and how to refuse. The one destination list that exists is a positive one, and it holds exactly 30 countries: the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Send data anywhere else and you also have to keep security measures, a complaints route and a dispute process in place, and write the transfer into your contract with the recipient.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Personal Information Protection Commission, chaired by Song Kyoung-hee, and it is one of the busiest privacy regulators in the world right now. In July 2026 alone it fined the telecoms company KT about 54 billion won (roughly $39 million) over a data breach, fined TikTok about 10.3 billion won (roughly $7.4 million) and Apple about 252 million won (roughly $180,000). It referred KT to prosecutors for obstructing the investigation and asked police to investigate LG U+ for destroying a server before the inquiry started. Finance is separately policed by the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service; health by the health ministry; maps by an inter-agency committee that includes the intelligence service.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Two forces pull in opposite directions. The ceiling: you must destroy personal data without delay once you no longer need it, and destroy it so it cannot be recovered. The floor: other laws make you keep things. An online seller must keep advertising records for 6 months, complaint and dispute records for 3 years, and contract, cancellation, payment and delivery records for 5 years. Almost everyone must keep system access logs for at least 1 year, and 2 years if the system holds data on 50,000 or more people, holds national ID numbers or sensitive data, or belongs to a licensed telecoms carrier. When the two clash, the keeping rule wins, but you must store that data separately from everything else.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count two clocks, and in telecoms and finance a third. Under the privacy law you have 72 hours to tell the affected people, and a separate 72 hours to report to the Commission or to the Korea Internet and Security Agency. The reporting clock starts if 1,000 or more people are affected, or if any sensitive data or national ID numbers leaked, or if the cause was someone breaking in from outside. Separately, an internet service provider must report a cyber incident to the science ministry or the same agency immediately. A hospital must also tell the health ministry about a medical-records incident.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that will cost you a weekend. One: the children's age line is 14, not 13 or 16, and processing an under-14's data without a parent's consent is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison, not just a fine. Two: hiding or destroying material during a regulator's inspection is itself a crime, and the regulator used it in July 2026. Three: stripping names out of a dataset does not free it. Four: a bank's Korean customers' national ID numbers may not leave the country at all, and any offshore processing of customers' financial transaction data needs a report to the supervisor 30 business days before work starts. Five: if you want to run a personal location service you must be a corporation and be registered, so you cannot serve Korea from abroad with no entity.High confidence
What's about to change?: The privacy regulator started rewriting the rulebook for artificial intelligence. It set up a reform task force on 30 July 2026, ran a public suggestion window from 6 to 31 August 2026, and plans to publish the direction of reform before the end of 2026. Consent-based rules and the block on sending pseudonymised data abroad for research are both explicitly on the table. Separately, Apple's request to export detailed Korean map data has been pending since its deadline was extended in December 2025, and Google's equivalent request was granted in February 2026 on strict conditions, so the mapping picture can move again at any time.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Banking — 전자금융감독규정 (Regulation on Supervision of Electronic Financial Transactions)
Finance — 금융회사의 정보처리 업무 위탁에 관한 규정 (Regulation on Outsourcing of Data Processing Business by Financial Companies)
Health and social care — 전자의무기록의 관리·보존에 필요한 시설과 장비에 관한 기준 (Standards for the Facilities and Equipment Required to Manage and Preserve Electronic Medical Records)
Government — 클라우드컴퓨팅서비스 보안인증에 관한 고시 (Notice on Security Certification of Cloud Computing Services)
Mapping and location — 공간정보의 구축 및 관리 등에 관한 법률 (Act on the Establishment and Management of Spatial Data)

HungaryChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Hungary has no general rule that data must stay in the country. It runs on the European rulebook: you may send data abroad if you have the right legal paperwork in place. Hungary used to force state registers to be processed on Hungarian soil, but that rule was scrapped in April 2024. The privacy regulator is real, staffed and issuing decisions, though its fines are small by European standards.
The catch: Two things break the easy answer. Since January 2025 a large slice of the economy — energy, transport, banking, health, water, digital infrastructure, waste, manufacturing and most of the public sector — may only use a shared cloud or process data outside Hungary after completing a formal data classification under the cybersecurity law. And an online casino serving Hungarian players must keep its game server inside the European Economic Area, full stop.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. A company with no office in Hungary is still caught if it offers goods or services to people in Hungary or watches their behaviour, because the European privacy rules reach outside Europe. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to hide under. If you have no establishment anywhere in Europe you must appoint a written representative inside Europe, and Hungary is a perfectly ordinary place to put one.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, on the normal European terms — nothing in general Hungarian law says data must be stored in Hungary. This is a change worth noticing: the rule that state registers could only be processed on Hungarian soil was repealed with effect from 1 April 2024, and the law that replaced it has no territorial restriction at all. Two sectors override this. An online casino must keep its game server inside the European Economic Area. And any company or public body inside the scope of Hungary's cybersecurity law must finish a formal data classification before it uses a shared cloud service or processes data abroad.Medium confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: You need a European transfer tool before the data leaves, and Hungary adds no extra permit, filing or fee on top. The model is an approved-list one: you may send data to a country the European Commission has declared safe, or you sign the standard European contract clauses and write down a risk assessment of the destination. There is no Hungarian government sign-off, and no Hungarian list of banned countries. For police, security and other work outside the European privacy rules, Hungary's own Info Act sets the conditions instead.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, known by its Hungarian initials NAIH, and it is genuinely working. It has published decisions right through to May 2026, released its report on 2025 activity on 30 March 2026, and issued public statements in July and August 2026. Its president is Dr Attila Peterfalvi. The catch is size, not activity: a typical fine is small — two million forint, roughly six thousand dollars, in an April 2025 data-security case.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Hungary pushes hard in both directions. The floor is long: accounting records and vouchers must be kept for eight years, and health records for decades — the health data law works in periods of thirty years and more. The ceiling is the European rule that you delete personal data once the purpose is spent. When the two collide, the specific statutory keep-period wins, so a deletion request does not empty your ledgers or a hospital's files.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count at least two clocks, and three if you are a bank. A personal data breach goes to the privacy regulator within 72 hours. A cyber incident at a company or public body covered by the cybersecurity law goes to the national incident response centre, and the European rules that Hungary is copying use a 24-hour first alert followed by a fuller report at 72 hours. Financial firms have a separate and faster set of deadlines under the European operational resilience rules.Medium confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in the summary. One: mishandling personal data is a crime in Hungary, not just a fine — up to one year in prison, two years for sensitive data, three years for public officials. Two: the old rule forcing state data to stay in Hungary is dead, so quoting it makes you look out of date, while the new cybersecurity classification gate is very much alive and most checklists miss it. Three: several cybersecurity deadlines have already passed, so newly in-scope companies are late on day one. Four: an online casino's game server must sit in the European Economic Area. Five: Hungary's freedom-of-information regime can make your contract with a state body public.High confidence
What's about to change?: Three dated items. The Court of Justice will rule on Hungary's sovereignty protection law; the court's adviser said on 12 February 2026 that it breaks European law, and the judgment could land any time. From 12 January 2027 cloud providers across Europe, Hungary included, must charge nothing to move your data out. And Hungary's cybersecurity supervision moves from paperwork to inspections now that the first audit deadline of 30 June 2026 has passed.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: Online gaming — 1991. evi XXXIV. torveny a szerencsejatek szervezeserol es a vegrehajtasi rendeletei (online kaszinojatek engedelyezesi feltetelei)
Government — 2021. evi XCI. torveny a nemzeti adatvagyonrol, 13. §

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	South KoreaChecked 18 August 2026	HungaryChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Aggressive	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	South Korea's privacy law bans sending personal data abroad unless you have one of five grounds. The usual one is a separate consent, ticked apart from every other consent. Since September 2025 the 30 European countries need no extra paperwork. But banking, health records, government cloud and detailed maps have hard walls no consent can unlock, and the regulator fines foreign companies often.	Hungary has no general rule that data must stay in the country. It runs on the European rulebook: you may send data abroad if you have the right legal paperwork in place. Hungary used to force state registers to be processed on Hungarian soil, but that rule was scrapped in April 2024. The privacy regulator is real, staffed and issuing decisions, though its fines are small by European standards.
The catch	The 'get consent and send it' headline stops being true the moment you touch six areas: bank and payment systems, financial customers' national ID numbers, hospital records, government cloud, detailed mapping data, and personal location services. In those areas the data or the machine holding it must physically sit in South Korea, and in the government cloud case so must the people who run it.	Two things break the easy answer. Since January 2025 a large slice of the economy — energy, transport, banking, health, water, digital infrastructure, waste, manufacturing and most of the public sector — may only use a shared cloud or process data outside Hungary after completing a formal data classification under the cybersecurity law. And an online casino serving Hungarian players must keep its game server inside the European Economic Area, full stop.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. The regulator fines companies with no Korean office. In July 2026 it fined TikTok's Singapore company and two Apple companies based in Ireland and Singapore for collecting Korean users' data and sending it abroad without a proper legal basis. If your worldwide revenue was 1 trillion won (about $720 million) or more last year, or you held data on an average of 1 million or more people in Korea per day over the last three months of last year, you must appoint a representative in Korea. Since April 2026, if you already own or control a Korean company, that Korean company has to be the representative.High confidence	Yes. A company with no office in Hungary is still caught if it offers goods or services to people in Hungary or watches their behaviour, because the European privacy rules reach outside Europe. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to hide under. If you have no establishment anywhere in Europe you must appoint a written representative inside Europe, and Hungary is a perfectly ordinary place to put one.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	In general yes, but only if you have one of five grounds, and the usual one is a separate consent that the person ticks apart from every other consent. Since September 2025 you can also send data to the 27 European Union countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein with no extra step at all, because the regulator has formally accepted their protection as equal to Korea's. That is the only such list, and no other country is on it. Six industries override all of this and are covered below.High confidence	Yes, on the normal European terms — nothing in general Hungarian law says data must be stored in Hungary. This is a change worth noticing: the rule that state registers could only be processed on Hungarian soil was repealed with effect from 1 April 2024, and the law that replaced it has no territorial restriction at all. Two sectors override this. An online casino must keep its game server inside the European Economic Area. And any company or public body inside the scope of Hungary's cybersecurity law must finish a formal data classification before it uses a shared cloud service or processes data abroad.Medium confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	Korea does not police the destination. It polices your paperwork. There is no banned-country list and no approval application to file: you pick one of the five grounds, and for most companies that means asking each person for a separate transfer consent that lists what goes, where, to whom, for how long and how to refuse. The one destination list that exists is a positive one, and it holds exactly 30 countries: the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Send data anywhere else and you also have to keep security measures, a complaints route and a dispute process in place, and write the transfer into your contract with the recipient.High confidence	You need a European transfer tool before the data leaves, and Hungary adds no extra permit, filing or fee on top. The model is an approved-list one: you may send data to a country the European Commission has declared safe, or you sign the standard European contract clauses and write down a risk assessment of the destination. There is no Hungarian government sign-off, and no Hungarian list of banned countries. For police, security and other work outside the European privacy rules, Hungary's own Info Act sets the conditions instead.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	The Personal Information Protection Commission, chaired by Song Kyoung-hee, and it is one of the busiest privacy regulators in the world right now. In July 2026 alone it fined the telecoms company KT about 54 billion won (roughly $39 million) over a data breach, fined TikTok about 10.3 billion won (roughly $7.4 million) and Apple about 252 million won (roughly $180,000). It referred KT to prosecutors for obstructing the investigation and asked police to investigate LG U+ for destroying a server before the inquiry started. Finance is separately policed by the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service; health by the health ministry; maps by an inter-agency committee that includes the intelligence service.High confidence	The National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, known by its Hungarian initials NAIH, and it is genuinely working. It has published decisions right through to May 2026, released its report on 2025 activity on 30 March 2026, and issued public statements in July and August 2026. Its president is Dr Attila Peterfalvi. The catch is size, not activity: a typical fine is small — two million forint, roughly six thousand dollars, in an April 2025 data-security case.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	Two forces pull in opposite directions. The ceiling: you must destroy personal data without delay once you no longer need it, and destroy it so it cannot be recovered. The floor: other laws make you keep things. An online seller must keep advertising records for 6 months, complaint and dispute records for 3 years, and contract, cancellation, payment and delivery records for 5 years. Almost everyone must keep system access logs for at least 1 year, and 2 years if the system holds data on 50,000 or more people, holds national ID numbers or sensitive data, or belongs to a licensed telecoms carrier. When the two clash, the keeping rule wins, but you must store that data separately from everything else.High confidence	Hungary pushes hard in both directions. The floor is long: accounting records and vouchers must be kept for eight years, and health records for decades — the health data law works in periods of thirty years and more. The ceiling is the European rule that you delete personal data once the purpose is spent. When the two collide, the specific statutory keep-period wins, so a deletion request does not empty your ledgers or a hospital's files.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	Count two clocks, and in telecoms and finance a third. Under the privacy law you have 72 hours to tell the affected people, and a separate 72 hours to report to the Commission or to the Korea Internet and Security Agency. The reporting clock starts if 1,000 or more people are affected, or if any sensitive data or national ID numbers leaked, or if the cause was someone breaking in from outside. Separately, an internet service provider must report a cyber incident to the science ministry or the same agency immediately. A hospital must also tell the health ministry about a medical-records incident.High confidence	Count at least two clocks, and three if you are a bank. A personal data breach goes to the privacy regulator within 72 hours. A cyber incident at a company or public body covered by the cybersecurity law goes to the national incident response centre, and the European rules that Hungary is copying use a 24-hour first alert followed by a fuller report at 72 hours. Financial firms have a separate and faster set of deadlines under the European operational resilience rules.Medium confidence
What's the trap?	Five things that will cost you a weekend. One: the children's age line is 14, not 13 or 16, and processing an under-14's data without a parent's consent is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison, not just a fine. Two: hiding or destroying material during a regulator's inspection is itself a crime, and the regulator used it in July 2026. Three: stripping names out of a dataset does not free it. Four: a bank's Korean customers' national ID numbers may not leave the country at all, and any offshore processing of customers' financial transaction data needs a report to the supervisor 30 business days before work starts. Five: if you want to run a personal location service you must be a corporation and be registered, so you cannot serve Korea from abroad with no entity.High confidence	Five things that are not in the summary. One: mishandling personal data is a crime in Hungary, not just a fine — up to one year in prison, two years for sensitive data, three years for public officials. Two: the old rule forcing state data to stay in Hungary is dead, so quoting it makes you look out of date, while the new cybersecurity classification gate is very much alive and most checklists miss it. Three: several cybersecurity deadlines have already passed, so newly in-scope companies are late on day one. Four: an online casino's game server must sit in the European Economic Area. Five: Hungary's freedom-of-information regime can make your contract with a state body public.High confidence
What's about to change?	The privacy regulator started rewriting the rulebook for artificial intelligence. It set up a reform task force on 30 July 2026, ran a public suggestion window from 6 to 31 August 2026, and plans to publish the direction of reform before the end of 2026. Consent-based rules and the block on sending pseudonymised data abroad for research are both explicitly on the table. Separately, Apple's request to export detailed Korean map data has been pending since its deadline was extended in December 2025, and Google's equivalent request was granted in February 2026 on strict conditions, so the mapping picture can move again at any time.High confidence	Three dated items. The Court of Justice will rule on Hungary's sovereignty protection law; the court's adviser said on 12 February 2026 that it breaks European law, and the judgment could land any time. From 12 January 2027 cloud providers across Europe, Hungary included, must charge nothing to move your data out. And Hungary's cybersecurity supervision moves from paperwork to inspections now that the first audit deadline of 30 June 2026 has passed.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall	Banking — 전자금융감독규정 (Regulation on Supervision of Electronic Financial Transactions) Finance — 금융회사의 정보처리 업무 위탁에 관한 규정 (Regulation on Outsourcing of Data Processing Business by Financial Companies) Health and social care — 전자의무기록의 관리·보존에 필요한 시설과 장비에 관한 기준 (Standards for the Facilities and Equipment Required to Manage and Preserve Electronic Medical Records) Government — 클라우드컴퓨팅서비스 보안인증에 관한 고시 (Notice on Security Certification of Cloud Computing Services) Mapping and location — 공간정보의 구축 및 관리 등에 관한 법률 (Act on the Establishment and Management of Spatial Data)	Online gaming — 1991. evi XXXIV. torveny a szerencsejatek szervezeserol es a vegrehajtasi rendeletei (online kaszinojatek engedelyezesi feltetelei) Government — 2021. evi XCI. torveny a nemzeti adatvagyonrol, 13. §