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

Countries

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

ChinaChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: Very highEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Data can leave China, but only through one of three official gates: a government security review, a government-written contract you file with the regulator, or a certificate from an approved body. Which gate you need depends on how many people's data you move, not on where you send it. Small exporters are exempt. Several industries are walled off entirely.
The catch: The 'paperwork, then it can go' answer is only true for ordinary companies. Payment firms, credit bureaus, hospitals, genetic labs, online map services, telecom and industrial operators, and anything the government labels critical national infrastructure must keep the data in China. In those areas a copy staying behind is not optional.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. China's privacy law reaches a company with no office and no staff in China if it offers goods or services to people in China, or analyses their behaviour. There is no revenue or headcount threshold that lets you out. If you are caught this way, you must set up a dedicated office in China or name a representative there, and give the regulator their details.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general yes, once you clear the right gate — but the gate is set by volume, not by destination. China has no list of banned or approved countries. Below 100,000 people a year you can usually send data abroad with no filing at all. Above that you need a contract filed with the regulator or a certificate; above a million people, or if you hold data the state calls 'important', you need a full government security review. Then come the industry walls, which override all of this.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Three routes, and you do not get to pick freely — your volume picks for you. Route one is a government security review, run by the national internet regulator through your provincial office; an approval lasts three years and only covers the exact purpose, scope and method you declared. Route two is China's own standard contract, which you sign with the overseas recipient and file with the provincial regulator along with a risk assessment. Route three is a certificate from an accredited body, which since 1 March 2026 has a national standard behind it. You also need each person's separate, specific consent before their data goes abroad.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Cyberspace Administration of China leads, and it is fully staffed and busy. It runs a nationwide enforcement campaign every year, tests apps itself and publishes the names of the ones that fail, and puts out batches of worked enforcement cases. Police, the industry ministry and the market regulator enforce alongside it, and finance, health, mapping and securities regulators run their own rules. Fines are usually modest and paired with an order to fix things; the eye-watering penalties in the statute are rarely used.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Both directions apply, and they pull against each other. The floor: network logs must be kept for at least six months, and accounting records have their own long minimum periods set by a national schedule. The ceiling: personal data may only be kept for the shortest time needed for the purpose you collected it for, and must be deleted once that purpose is met, the service ends, or consent is withdrawn. Where a law sets a minimum, that minimum wins over the delete duty — you keep the record and stop using it for anything else.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Three clocks, and they overlap. If you run critical national infrastructure you have ONE HOUR to report a serious incident to your supervising department and the police. Everyone else has four hours to tell the provincial internet office. On top of that, a network data incident that could harm national security or the public interest must be reported within 24 hours. You must also tell affected people immediately, by phone, text, message, email or public notice.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that ruin weekends. (1) Sending data abroad needs each person's separate, specific consent — a line buried in a global privacy notice will not do. (2) A child is anyone under 14, and their data is treated as sensitive, so you need a parent's consent and a separate set of processing rules. (3) You may not hand data stored in China to a foreign court, police force or regulator without Chinese government approval — this catches routine legal discovery and overseas audit requests. (4) You have to work out for yourself whether you hold 'important data' and report it, because the official catalogues are incomplete. (5) The widely repeated claim that all personal financial data must be stored in China does not appear where people think it does.High confidence
What's about to change?: The next twelve months are about size-based rules. A draft published on 7 August 2026 would create a heavy new tier for any company holding data on ten million people or more: store it in China, appoint a chief privacy officer, set up an outside supervision committee, publish an annual report and honour data portability requests within 30 working days. Comments closed on 7 September 2026 and it is not law yet. A companion draft going the other way would simplify life for small processors. Watch the dormant switches — several can flip with no consultation at all.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: All industries — 中华人民共和国网络安全法（2025年修正）
Payments — 非银行支付机构监督管理条例
Finance — 征信业务管理办法
Banking — 中国人民银行业务领域数据安全管理办法
Securities — 关于加强境内企业境外发行证券和上市相关保密和档案管理工作的规定
Health and social care — 国家健康医疗大数据标准、安全和服务管理办法（试行）
Mapping and location — 地图管理条例
Telecoms — 工业和信息化领域数据安全管理办法（试行）

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	MexicoChecked 18 August 2026	ChinaChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Depends on your industry Work: Medium Enforcement: Waking up	Yes, with paperwork Work: Very high Enforcement: Active
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.	Data can leave China, but only through one of three official gates: a government security review, a government-written contract you file with the regulator, or a certificate from an approved body. Which gate you need depends on how many people's data you move, not on where you send it. Small exporters are exempt. Several industries are walled off entirely.
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.	The 'paperwork, then it can go' answer is only true for ordinary companies. Payment firms, credit bureaus, hospitals, genetic labs, online map services, telecom and industrial operators, and anything the government labels critical national infrastructure must keep the data in China. In those areas a copy staying behind is not optional.
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	Yes. China's privacy law reaches a company with no office and no staff in China if it offers goods or services to people in China, or analyses their behaviour. There is no revenue or headcount threshold that lets you out. If you are caught this way, you must set up a dedicated office in China or name a representative there, and give the regulator their details.High 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	In general yes, once you clear the right gate — but the gate is set by volume, not by destination. China has no list of banned or approved countries. Below 100,000 people a year you can usually send data abroad with no filing at all. Above that you need a contract filed with the regulator or a certificate; above a million people, or if you hold data the state calls 'important', you need a full government security review. Then come the industry walls, which override all of this.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	Three routes, and you do not get to pick freely — your volume picks for you. Route one is a government security review, run by the national internet regulator through your provincial office; an approval lasts three years and only covers the exact purpose, scope and method you declared. Route two is China's own standard contract, which you sign with the overseas recipient and file with the provincial regulator along with a risk assessment. Route three is a certificate from an accredited body, which since 1 March 2026 has a national standard behind it. You also need each person's separate, specific consent before their data goes abroad.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	The Cyberspace Administration of China leads, and it is fully staffed and busy. It runs a nationwide enforcement campaign every year, tests apps itself and publishes the names of the ones that fail, and puts out batches of worked enforcement cases. Police, the industry ministry and the market regulator enforce alongside it, and finance, health, mapping and securities regulators run their own rules. Fines are usually modest and paired with an order to fix things; the eye-watering penalties in the statute are rarely used.High 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	Both directions apply, and they pull against each other. The floor: network logs must be kept for at least six months, and accounting records have their own long minimum periods set by a national schedule. The ceiling: personal data may only be kept for the shortest time needed for the purpose you collected it for, and must be deleted once that purpose is met, the service ends, or consent is withdrawn. Where a law sets a minimum, that minimum wins over the delete duty — you keep the record and stop using it for anything else.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	Three clocks, and they overlap. If you run critical national infrastructure you have ONE HOUR to report a serious incident to your supervising department and the police. Everyone else has four hours to tell the provincial internet office. On top of that, a network data incident that could harm national security or the public interest must be reported within 24 hours. You must also tell affected people immediately, by phone, text, message, email or public notice.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	Five things that ruin weekends. (1) Sending data abroad needs each person's separate, specific consent — a line buried in a global privacy notice will not do. (2) A child is anyone under 14, and their data is treated as sensitive, so you need a parent's consent and a separate set of processing rules. (3) You may not hand data stored in China to a foreign court, police force or regulator without Chinese government approval — this catches routine legal discovery and overseas audit requests. (4) You have to work out for yourself whether you hold 'important data' and report it, because the official catalogues are incomplete. (5) The widely repeated claim that all personal financial data must be stored in China does not appear where people think it does.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	The next twelve months are about size-based rules. A draft published on 7 August 2026 would create a heavy new tier for any company holding data on ten million people or more: store it in China, appoint a chief privacy officer, set up an outside supervision committee, publish an annual report and honour data portability requests within 30 working days. Comments closed on 7 September 2026 and it is not law yet. A companion draft going the other way would simplify life for small processors. Watch the dormant switches — several can flip with no consultation at all.High 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	All industries — 中华人民共和国网络安全法（2025年修正） Payments — 非银行支付机构监督管理条例 Finance — 征信业务管理办法 Banking — 中国人民银行业务领域数据安全管理办法 Securities — 关于加强境内企业境外发行证券和上市相关保密和档案管理工作的规定 Health and social care — 国家健康医疗大数据标准、安全和服务管理办法（试行） Mapping and location — 地图管理条例 Telecoms — 工业和信息化领域数据安全管理办法（试行）