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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)

SlovakiaChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Slovakia has no general rule that data must stay in the country. It runs on the European rulebook: send data abroad once you have the right paperwork. Three areas break that rule. Online gambling servers must sit on Slovak soil. The most sensitive government data must stay in a Slovak data centre. And anyone who takes aerial survey pictures of Slovakia must hand a copy to a defence ministry archive.
The catch: The easy answer stops being true in three places. First, online gambling: the operator's server must be physically in Slovakia, with no European Economic Area alternative. Second, government cloud: a public body handling the top security category of data may only use a service that stores and processes it inside Slovakia, in a data centre within reach of the Slovak state. Third, mapping: primary aerial survey imagery and published maps must be deposited with Slovak state archives, including one run by the Ministry of Defence. Banking, payments, insurance, securities, health and telecoms have no storage-location rule that we could find.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. A company with no office in Slovakia is still caught if it offers goods or services to people in Slovakia, or watches what they do online. There is no minimum size, headcount or revenue below which you are safe. If you have no office anywhere in the European Union, you must name a written representative inside the Union, and you can put that person in any member state where your customers are — it does not have to be Slovakia.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general, yes — with the standard European paperwork. Nothing in Slovak law says personal data must be kept in Slovakia, and the law says so almost in as many words: it applies to a Slovak company whether it processes data inside or outside the country. But three specific activities do force data to stay. Online gambling operators must put their server in Slovakia. The top security tier of government data must stay in a Slovak data centre. And aerial survey imagery of Slovakia must be handed to a state archive.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Slovakia uses the European model, and it is an allowlist. Data may go to a country the European Commission has approved, or to anywhere else if you sign the Commission's standard contract, use approved group-wide rules, or fit one of a few narrow exceptions. The approved list is real and populated — it includes the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Canada for commercial bodies, and the United States only for companies signed up to the transatlantic framework. Slovakia adds nothing of its own on top.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic. It is real, staffed and busy. In 2025 it issued 542 final fines totalling about 468,000 euros (roughly $510,000) and actually collected about 411,000 euros of that — a very high number of fines but a very small average, about 860 euros each. It has around 60 staff and got 20 extra posts in 2025. Cybersecurity incidents go to a separate body, the National Security Authority.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is no single retention rule. The general privacy rule is to delete when you no longer need the data. Against that sit long minimum-keeping duties: ten years for accounts and financial statements, and up to one hundred years after death for entries in the national health registers. Telecom companies keep far less than most people assume — Slovakia scrapped blanket call-record retention after its Constitutional Court struck it down, so operators only retain what a court order covers.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There are two clocks and they are different. A personal data breach goes to the privacy authority within 72 hours of you becoming aware of it, and to the affected people without undue delay if the risk to them is high. A cybersecurity incident at a regulated organisation goes to the National Security Authority twice: a first warning within 24 hours, then a fuller report within 72 hours. If you are both, you file both, to two different bodies.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in the summary. Public bodies can be fined the full amount, with no discount. Mishandling personal data you got through your job is a crime, not just a fine. The age of consent for online services is 16, not 13. The rule on dead people's data changed today. And the gambling server rule has no European workaround.High confidence
What's about to change?: The whole national privacy law is being replaced by two new laws — one general, one for police and courts — but they are still bills and have no legal effect. Act 18/2018 was amended today, 18 August 2026, mostly to remove dead people from its scope. Public bodies face a bigger data-registration duty from 1 January 2027, and all cloud switching and data export fees across Europe must drop to zero by 12 January 2027.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Online gaming — Zákon č. 30/2019 Z. z. o hazardných hrách a o zmene a doplnení niektorých zákonov, § 14 ods. 21 a 22
Government — Metodické usmernenie č. 020775/2025/oSBATA z 11. 4. 2025 pre proces zaradenia cloudovej služby do katalógu vládnych cloudových služieb, vydané podľa § 24a zákona č. 95/2019 Z. z.
Mapping and location — Zákon Národnej rady Slovenskej republiky č. 215/1995 Z. z. o geodézii a kartografii

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	South KoreaChecked 18 August 2026	SlovakiaChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Aggressive	Depends on your industry 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.	Slovakia has no general rule that data must stay in the country. It runs on the European rulebook: send data abroad once you have the right paperwork. Three areas break that rule. Online gambling servers must sit on Slovak soil. The most sensitive government data must stay in a Slovak data centre. And anyone who takes aerial survey pictures of Slovakia must hand a copy to a defence ministry archive.
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.	The easy answer stops being true in three places. First, online gambling: the operator's server must be physically in Slovakia, with no European Economic Area alternative. Second, government cloud: a public body handling the top security category of data may only use a service that stores and processes it inside Slovakia, in a data centre within reach of the Slovak state. Third, mapping: primary aerial survey imagery and published maps must be deposited with Slovak state archives, including one run by the Ministry of Defence. Banking, payments, insurance, securities, health and telecoms have no storage-location rule that we could find.
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 Slovakia is still caught if it offers goods or services to people in Slovakia, or watches what they do online. There is no minimum size, headcount or revenue below which you are safe. If you have no office anywhere in the European Union, you must name a written representative inside the Union, and you can put that person in any member state where your customers are — it does not have to be Slovakia.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	In general, yes — with the standard European paperwork. Nothing in Slovak law says personal data must be kept in Slovakia, and the law says so almost in as many words: it applies to a Slovak company whether it processes data inside or outside the country. But three specific activities do force data to stay. Online gambling operators must put their server in Slovakia. The top security tier of government data must stay in a Slovak data centre. And aerial survey imagery of Slovakia must be handed to a state archive.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	Slovakia uses the European model, and it is an allowlist. Data may go to a country the European Commission has approved, or to anywhere else if you sign the Commission's standard contract, use approved group-wide rules, or fit one of a few narrow exceptions. The approved list is real and populated — it includes the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Canada for commercial bodies, and the United States only for companies signed up to the transatlantic framework. Slovakia adds nothing of its own on top.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 Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic. It is real, staffed and busy. In 2025 it issued 542 final fines totalling about 468,000 euros (roughly $510,000) and actually collected about 411,000 euros of that — a very high number of fines but a very small average, about 860 euros each. It has around 60 staff and got 20 extra posts in 2025. Cybersecurity incidents go to a separate body, the National Security Authority.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	There is no single retention rule. The general privacy rule is to delete when you no longer need the data. Against that sit long minimum-keeping duties: ten years for accounts and financial statements, and up to one hundred years after death for entries in the national health registers. Telecom companies keep far less than most people assume — Slovakia scrapped blanket call-record retention after its Constitutional Court struck it down, so operators only retain what a court order covers.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	There are two clocks and they are different. A personal data breach goes to the privacy authority within 72 hours of you becoming aware of it, and to the affected people without undue delay if the risk to them is high. A cybersecurity incident at a regulated organisation goes to the National Security Authority twice: a first warning within 24 hours, then a fuller report within 72 hours. If you are both, you file both, to two different bodies.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	Five things that are not in the summary. Public bodies can be fined the full amount, with no discount. Mishandling personal data you got through your job is a crime, not just a fine. The age of consent for online services is 16, not 13. The rule on dead people's data changed today. And the gambling server rule has no European workaround.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	The whole national privacy law is being replaced by two new laws — one general, one for police and courts — but they are still bills and have no legal effect. Act 18/2018 was amended today, 18 August 2026, mostly to remove dead people from its scope. Public bodies face a bigger data-registration duty from 1 January 2027, and all cloud switching and data export fees across Europe must drop to zero by 12 January 2027.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)	Online gaming — Zákon č. 30/2019 Z. z. o hazardných hrách a o zmene a doplnení niektorých zákonov, § 14 ods. 21 a 22 Government — Metodické usmernenie č. 020775/2025/oSBATA z 11. 4. 2025 pre proces zaradenia cloudovej služby do katalógu vládnych cloudových služieb, vydané podľa § 24a zákona č. 95/2019 Z. z. Mapping and location — Zákon Národnej rady Slovenskej republiky č. 215/1995 Z. z. o geodézii a kartografii