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

Countries

Sri LankaChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: MediumEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: Sri Lanka has a full privacy law on the books, but almost none of the parts that create duties for companies are switched on yet. The government has now fixed 1 January 2027 as the day the core duties start. Data may leave the country freely today. From 2027 you will need a written contract or similar promise from whoever receives it abroad. No fines have ever been issued.
The catch: The 'conditional' rating describes 1 January 2027, not today. As of 18 August 2026 the transfer rule is not in force, the individual-rights section has no start date at all, and the penalty section has no start date either. There are no industry data-storage walls: banking, payments, insurance, securities, health and telecom all lack a localisation rule. The only place data location is even mentioned is government, and there it is a preference, not a ban.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. The law reaches a company with no office in Sri Lanka if it offers goods or services to people in Sri Lanka, or watches how they behave online. It also catches anyone processing data inside the country. There is no size or revenue floor to fall below, and no requirement to appoint a local representative. But none of this bites until 1 January 2027, because the scope section itself has not started yet.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Today, yes, with nothing to sign — the transfer section is not in force. From 1 January 2027 data can still leave, but you must first get a binding promise from the receiver abroad that Sri Lankan protections will be honoured. There is no banned-country list and no approved-country list: Sri Lanka scrapped its country-approval system in October 2025. No industry has a rule forcing data to stay in Sri Lanka.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Right now, nothing. There is no approval to get, no list to check and no form to file, because the transfer section has not started. From 1 January 2027 you will need a written, binding commitment from the overseas receiver. The Authority is supposed to say exactly what form that takes, and it has not done so — only a draft from October 2024 exists, and that draft was written for a version of the law that no longer exists.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Data Protection Authority of Sri Lanka. It genuinely exists: it has a chairman, a seven-person board, a director-general, an office in Colombo and it publishes circulars and draft rules. But it has never issued a fine or a decision, and legally it cannot yet. The Authority itself says in writing that it will only investigate complaints once the relevant sections are switched on. The penalty section still has no start date.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: The floor is clearer than the ceiling. Banks, finance companies and other reporting institutions must keep transaction records for six years, and identity records for six years after the account closes. The ceiling is a principle, not a number: from 1 January 2027 you must not keep personal data in a form that identifies someone for longer than the purpose needs. Where the two clash, the six-year legal duty wins.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There is no deadline, because there is no duty yet. This is unusual and worth saying plainly: as of 18 August 2026 a company suffering a data breach in Sri Lanka has no legal obligation to tell anyone. Reporting to the national cyber team is voluntary. From 1 January 2027 you must notify the Authority, but the rules that set the form and the clock are still a draft. Banks are the exception and must report technology and cyber incidents to the Central Bank.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that will cost you a weekend. A child in Sri Lanka is anyone under sixteen, not eighteen, and a parent must consent for them. Fines are small but personal: directors can be made to pay unless they prove they did not know. The advertised start date of 18 March 2025 was cancelled four days before it arrived, so anything written before November 2025 is wrong. Company data is not protected the way you would expect, because the individual-rights section still has no start date. And the published transfer guidance describes a law that no longer exists.High confidence
What's about to change?: One hard date and four switches. On 1 January 2027 the scope, the processing duties and the controller duties all start, and the Central Bank's new outsourcing rules for banks start the same day. Before then the Authority is expected to finalise its rules on breach reporting, impact assessments, data protection officers and overseas transfers. Watch also for a second gazette bringing individual rights and the penalty section into force — without it, the law has duties but no teeth.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Government — Personal Data Protection Act section 26(4) and 26(5), as substituted by Act No. 22 of 2025

MexicoChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: MediumEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: Mexico's general privacy law does not care where you store data. There is no approved-country list, no standard contract to sign and no permission to ask for. You need the right wording in your privacy notice and, usually, the person's consent. The rules that actually pin data to Mexico live in banking, money-laundering and tax law, not in the privacy law.
The catch: The relaxed headline stops the moment you are a bank, a stockbroker, a crowdfunding platform, an insurer or a phone company. Banks need written permission from the banking regulator before any processing happens abroad. Separately, anti-money-laundering law and tax law require many ordinary businesses to keep their records at a Mexican address for ten and five years. Those rules bind companies that have never read a privacy law.
Does this apply to me?: Probably yes, but Mexico is unusually vague about it. The privacy law says only that it applies across Mexican territory. It does not spell out when it reaches a company based abroad. The old rulebook did say the law caught a foreign company that used equipment or systems located in Mexico, and let that company appoint a local representative instead of opening an office. That old rulebook belonged to a law that was scrapped in March 2025, so its status today is genuinely unclear. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to fall below.Medium confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Under the general privacy law, yes, and with very little paperwork. Mexico has no list of approved countries and no list of banned ones. Sending data to a company abroad is treated exactly like sending it to a company down the road: say so in your privacy notice, get the person's consent unless one of seven exceptions applies, and pass the privacy notice on to whoever receives the data. Handing data to your own supplier who only follows your instructions is not even counted as a transfer. Five sectors override this, and in three of them the override is severe.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Nothing needs approval and no list exists in either direction. The model is simply unrestricted: any destination is allowed. What you need is a privacy notice that names the transfer and carries a clause where the person accepts or refuses it, plus that person's consent unless one of seven legal exceptions covers you. Because there is no list to populate, the government cannot make this stricter by adding a country. It would take a new law or a new regulation.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: Mexico abolished its independent privacy regulator. The National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Data Protection was wound up in March 2025 and its staff, files and cases were moved into a government ministry, the Anti-Corruption and Good Government Ministry. So the referee is now part of the government rather than independent of it. The ministry is staffed, but the law says the detailed procedure for complaints, inspections and fines will be set out in a regulation, and that regulation still has not been published. Financial regulators, by contrast, are visibly active and update their rulebooks almost monthly.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is no single retention period. The privacy law says delete data once it is no longer needed, after a blocking period equal to the time limit for suing over the relationship. One hard ceiling is written into the law: information about someone breaking a contract must be erased six years after the default. The floors are longer and come from other laws. Tax records must be kept five years and their supporting documents must be available at your Mexican tax address. Anti-money-laundering records must be kept ten years at an address you register with the Finance Ministry. Phone companies keep call and location records for two years. Where a floor and a ceiling clash, the floor wins, because the privacy law lets you keep data to meet a legal duty.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There are at least three clocks and they do not agree. Under the general privacy law you must tell the affected people immediately if a breach significantly harms their money or their reputation, and there is no duty to tell the regulator at all. Banks face a much tighter set: tell the banking regulator immediately, tell affected customers within forty-eight hours, file a full report within five working days, and send a remediation plan within fifteen working days of the incident ending. Phone companies must hand requested records to the authorities within twenty-four hours and keep a team available every hour of every day. Mexico has no general cyber-incident reporting law that catches everyone.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things catch people out. Every private business in Mexico is now legally required to ask customers for their national population ID number. Anti-money-laundering rules force many ordinary businesses to keep ten years of records at a Mexican address, which quietly rules out a pure foreign cloud setup. Mishandling data can put a person in prison, not just cost a company money. Banks must get written permission before any processing happens abroad, and that includes routine cloud hosting. And the rulebook the privacy law keeps pointing at does not exist.High confidence
What's about to change?: The biggest thing coming is a regulation that is already overdue. The privacy law repeatedly says a rulebook will set the deadlines for complaints, inspections and fines, and the government missed its own June 2025 deadline to publish it. When it lands it could change how enforcement works overnight, with no consultation. Health law was changed in January 2026 to put telehealth on a statutory footing, and the biometric national ID is still being rolled out. The dangerous powers are the ones the government already holds rather than any bill in parliament.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: Payments — Disposiciones de carácter general aplicables a las instituciones de tecnología financiera, artículos 85 a 87
Finance — Ley Federal para la Prevención e Identificación de Operaciones con Recursos de Procedencia Ilícita, artículos 15 y 18
All industries — Código Fiscal de la Federación, artículos 28 y 30
Telecoms — Ley en Materia de Telecomunicaciones y Radiodifusión, artículo 183

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	Sri LankaChecked 18 August 2026	MexicoChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: Medium Enforcement: Waking up	Depends on your industry Work: Medium Enforcement: Waking up
In one paragraph	Sri Lanka has a full privacy law on the books, but almost none of the parts that create duties for companies are switched on yet. The government has now fixed 1 January 2027 as the day the core duties start. Data may leave the country freely today. From 2027 you will need a written contract or similar promise from whoever receives it abroad. No fines have ever been issued.	Mexico's general privacy law does not care where you store data. There is no approved-country list, no standard contract to sign and no permission to ask for. You need the right wording in your privacy notice and, usually, the person's consent. The rules that actually pin data to Mexico live in banking, money-laundering and tax law, not in the privacy law.
The catch	The 'conditional' rating describes 1 January 2027, not today. As of 18 August 2026 the transfer rule is not in force, the individual-rights section has no start date at all, and the penalty section has no start date either. There are no industry data-storage walls: banking, payments, insurance, securities, health and telecom all lack a localisation rule. The only place data location is even mentioned is government, and there it is a preference, not a ban.	The relaxed headline stops the moment you are a bank, a stockbroker, a crowdfunding platform, an insurer or a phone company. Banks need written permission from the banking regulator before any processing happens abroad. Separately, anti-money-laundering law and tax law require many ordinary businesses to keep their records at a Mexican address for ten and five years. Those rules bind companies that have never read a privacy law.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. The law reaches a company with no office in Sri Lanka if it offers goods or services to people in Sri Lanka, or watches how they behave online. It also catches anyone processing data inside the country. There is no size or revenue floor to fall below, and no requirement to appoint a local representative. But none of this bites until 1 January 2027, because the scope section itself has not started yet.High confidence	Probably yes, but Mexico is unusually vague about it. The privacy law says only that it applies across Mexican territory. It does not spell out when it reaches a company based abroad. The old rulebook did say the law caught a foreign company that used equipment or systems located in Mexico, and let that company appoint a local representative instead of opening an office. That old rulebook belonged to a law that was scrapped in March 2025, so its status today is genuinely unclear. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to fall below.Medium confidence
Can the data leave the country?	Today, yes, with nothing to sign — the transfer section is not in force. From 1 January 2027 data can still leave, but you must first get a binding promise from the receiver abroad that Sri Lankan protections will be honoured. There is no banned-country list and no approved-country list: Sri Lanka scrapped its country-approval system in October 2025. No industry has a rule forcing data to stay in Sri Lanka.High confidence	Under the general privacy law, yes, and with very little paperwork. Mexico has no list of approved countries and no list of banned ones. Sending data to a company abroad is treated exactly like sending it to a company down the road: say so in your privacy notice, get the person's consent unless one of seven exceptions applies, and pass the privacy notice on to whoever receives the data. Handing data to your own supplier who only follows your instructions is not even counted as a transfer. Five sectors override this, and in three of them the override is severe.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	Right now, nothing. There is no approval to get, no list to check and no form to file, because the transfer section has not started. From 1 January 2027 you will need a written, binding commitment from the overseas receiver. The Authority is supposed to say exactly what form that takes, and it has not done so — only a draft from October 2024 exists, and that draft was written for a version of the law that no longer exists.High confidence	Nothing needs approval and no list exists in either direction. The model is simply unrestricted: any destination is allowed. What you need is a privacy notice that names the transfer and carries a clause where the person accepts or refuses it, plus that person's consent unless one of seven legal exceptions covers you. Because there is no list to populate, the government cannot make this stricter by adding a country. It would take a new law or a new regulation.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	The Data Protection Authority of Sri Lanka. It genuinely exists: it has a chairman, a seven-person board, a director-general, an office in Colombo and it publishes circulars and draft rules. But it has never issued a fine or a decision, and legally it cannot yet. The Authority itself says in writing that it will only investigate complaints once the relevant sections are switched on. The penalty section still has no start date.High confidence	Mexico abolished its independent privacy regulator. The National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Data Protection was wound up in March 2025 and its staff, files and cases were moved into a government ministry, the Anti-Corruption and Good Government Ministry. So the referee is now part of the government rather than independent of it. The ministry is staffed, but the law says the detailed procedure for complaints, inspections and fines will be set out in a regulation, and that regulation still has not been published. Financial regulators, by contrast, are visibly active and update their rulebooks almost monthly.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	The floor is clearer than the ceiling. Banks, finance companies and other reporting institutions must keep transaction records for six years, and identity records for six years after the account closes. The ceiling is a principle, not a number: from 1 January 2027 you must not keep personal data in a form that identifies someone for longer than the purpose needs. Where the two clash, the six-year legal duty wins.High confidence	There is no single retention period. The privacy law says delete data once it is no longer needed, after a blocking period equal to the time limit for suing over the relationship. One hard ceiling is written into the law: information about someone breaking a contract must be erased six years after the default. The floors are longer and come from other laws. Tax records must be kept five years and their supporting documents must be available at your Mexican tax address. Anti-money-laundering records must be kept ten years at an address you register with the Finance Ministry. Phone companies keep call and location records for two years. Where a floor and a ceiling clash, the floor wins, because the privacy law lets you keep data to meet a legal duty.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	There is no deadline, because there is no duty yet. This is unusual and worth saying plainly: as of 18 August 2026 a company suffering a data breach in Sri Lanka has no legal obligation to tell anyone. Reporting to the national cyber team is voluntary. From 1 January 2027 you must notify the Authority, but the rules that set the form and the clock are still a draft. Banks are the exception and must report technology and cyber incidents to the Central Bank.High confidence	There are at least three clocks and they do not agree. Under the general privacy law you must tell the affected people immediately if a breach significantly harms their money or their reputation, and there is no duty to tell the regulator at all. Banks face a much tighter set: tell the banking regulator immediately, tell affected customers within forty-eight hours, file a full report within five working days, and send a remediation plan within fifteen working days of the incident ending. Phone companies must hand requested records to the authorities within twenty-four hours and keep a team available every hour of every day. Mexico has no general cyber-incident reporting law that catches everyone.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five things that will cost you a weekend. A child in Sri Lanka is anyone under sixteen, not eighteen, and a parent must consent for them. Fines are small but personal: directors can be made to pay unless they prove they did not know. The advertised start date of 18 March 2025 was cancelled four days before it arrived, so anything written before November 2025 is wrong. Company data is not protected the way you would expect, because the individual-rights section still has no start date. And the published transfer guidance describes a law that no longer exists.High confidence	Five things catch people out. Every private business in Mexico is now legally required to ask customers for their national population ID number. Anti-money-laundering rules force many ordinary businesses to keep ten years of records at a Mexican address, which quietly rules out a pure foreign cloud setup. Mishandling data can put a person in prison, not just cost a company money. Banks must get written permission before any processing happens abroad, and that includes routine cloud hosting. And the rulebook the privacy law keeps pointing at does not exist.High confidence
What's about to change?	One hard date and four switches. On 1 January 2027 the scope, the processing duties and the controller duties all start, and the Central Bank's new outsourcing rules for banks start the same day. Before then the Authority is expected to finalise its rules on breach reporting, impact assessments, data protection officers and overseas transfers. Watch also for a second gazette bringing individual rights and the penalty section into force — without it, the law has duties but no teeth.High confidence	The biggest thing coming is a regulation that is already overdue. The privacy law repeatedly says a rulebook will set the deadlines for complaints, inspections and fines, and the government missed its own June 2025 deadline to publish it. When it lands it could change how enforcement works overnight, with no consultation. Health law was changed in January 2026 to put telehealth on a statutory footing, and the biometric national ID is still being rolled out. The dangerous powers are the ones the government already holds rather than any bill in parliament.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall	Government — Personal Data Protection Act section 26(4) and 26(5), as substituted by Act No. 22 of 2025	Payments — Disposiciones de carácter general aplicables a las instituciones de tecnología financiera, artículos 85 a 87 Finance — Ley Federal para la Prevención e Identificación de Operaciones con Recursos de Procedencia Ilícita, artículos 15 y 18 All industries — Código Fiscal de la Federación, artículos 28 y 30 Telecoms — Ley en Materia de Telecomunicaciones y Radiodifusión, artículo 183