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

Countries

ThailandChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Thailand does not make you keep personal data inside the country, but data cannot leave until you have picked and documented a legal route. The regulator never published a list of approved destination countries, so consent and written safeguards do all the work. A foreign company selling into Thailand needs a named representative living there. Getting it wrong can mean fines, double damages, and in the worst cases jail.
The catch: The permissive headline is about residency only. The burden is high and the pain is elsewhere: a person in Thailand who answers for you personally, parental consent for anyone under twenty in many cases, 90-day traffic logs that catch any business offering guest wi-fi, compensation owed even when you were not careless, and a technology-crime regime that forces banks and telecoms companies to hand customer data into a government-run exchange. Payments, government workloads and digital platforms each add their own regulator gate on top.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. The privacy law reaches a company with no office in Thailand if it offers goods or services to people who are in Thailand, or if it tracks what those people do. Payment is irrelevant — a free service counts. There is no revenue or headcount floor to fall below. A foreign company caught this way must appoint, in writing, a representative who is physically in Thailand and who can be held answerable with no cap on liability.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, in most cases. Thailand does not make companies keep a copy of personal data inside the country. But data cannot simply leave: you must first have a legal route, and the regulator has never published a list of approved destination countries, so the 'this country is safe enough' route is unusable in practice. Everyone falls back on informed consent, contract necessity, approved group-wide rules, or their own written safeguards. Several industries add a second gate on top, described below.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: There is no permission slip to apply for and no banned-country list. You pick a route and document it before the data moves. The routes are: the destination is judged to have good enough protection; one of six statutory exceptions such as informed consent; group-wide rules certified by the regulator; or your own written safeguards that a person in Thailand could actually enforce. The 'good enough country' route is dead on arrival because the regulator has published no approved list, so in practice the safeguards route and consent do all the work.Medium confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Office of the Personal Data Protection Committee, usually shortened to PDPC, sits under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society. It is real and staffed: it has a serving Secretary-General, it runs walk-in complaint centres in five provinces and opened another in Ubon Ratchathani on 17 August 2026, and it is executing Cabinet-level instructions on data breaches. Complaints are decided by an Expert Committee that can order you to stop, order you to fix things, and impose fines itself. Other regulators run their own lanes: the cyber-security agency for critical infrastructure, the central bank for payments, and the electronic transactions agency for digital platforms.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Thailand pushes in both directions at once. The floor: anyone who provides a computer or internet service to other people must keep traffic logs for at least 90 days, and an official can order that stretched to as much as two years. The ceiling: the privacy law makes you build a system that actually deletes personal data once your stated retention period runs out or the data is no longer needed. When the two collide, the keep-it duty wins, because the delete duty has a written carve-out for complying with law and for defending legal claims.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count three clocks, not one. First: tell the privacy regulator about a personal data breach without delay and within 72 hours of becoming aware, unless the breach carries no risk to people; if the risk to people is high you must also tell the affected individuals, with advice on what to do, without delay. Second: if you run critical information infrastructure, a significant cyber threat must be reported to the national cyber-security agency and to your own sector regulator, and silence without good reason is itself an offence. Third: if you are a bank or a telecoms operator and you suspect technology crime, you must push customer account and transaction data into a shared government-run system immediately.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in the brochure. Children: Thailand needs a parent's consent for a child aged ten or under, and for older teenagers too unless the act is one the law lets a minor do alone — and a person is a minor in Thailand until twenty. Jail is on the table for misusing sensitive data. You owe compensation even if you were not careless, and a court can add up to double on top. A foreign company must put a named human in Thailand with unlimited authority. And the 90-day log rule catches ordinary businesses that just offer guest wi-fi.High confidence
What's about to change?: Nothing in the next twelve months looks like a new statute. What is moving is enforcement reach. The privacy regulator is opening walk-in centres in eight provinces during 2026 to cover all five regions, which means more complaints will actually get filed. The Cabinet decided on 11 August 2026 to require multi-factor login protection across government to stop leaked passwords turning into data breaches, and the ministry is pushing the same expectation across all twenty ministries. The bigger risk is not new law but switches the government already holds and can flip without warning.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: None found.

GreeceChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: For most businesses Greece is a normal European country: personal data can leave, as long as you use one of the standard European transfer tools. But Greece has two hard walls that Europe does not. Phone and internet connection records must physically sit on machines inside Greece. Online gambling operators must keep their records on a server inside Greece too. The privacy regulator is fully staffed and fining companies today.
The catch: The relaxed European headline stops being true the moment you touch three things. Telecoms connection records must be stored on physical media inside Greek territory for twelve months. Online gambling records must sit on a server or safe inside Greece for ten years. And Greek public bodies must run their central systems on the Greek state's own clouds, not on a commercial cloud of their choosing. Outside those three, plus the health and public sectors, Greece imposes no storage-location rule of its own.
Does this apply to me?: Yes, it reaches a foreign company with no office in Greece. The European privacy rules apply to anyone anywhere who offers goods or services to people in Greece, or who watches what they do online. The Greek national law adds that it also covers anyone processing data on Greek soil. There is no size or revenue threshold that lets you off. If you have no establishment anywhere in Europe, you must appoint a written representative inside the European Union.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general, yes. Greece adds no storage-location rule of its own to the European baseline, so ordinary business data can be sent abroad once you have the right European transfer paperwork. Three industries break that rule completely. Telecoms companies must keep their connection records on machines physically inside Greece. Online gambling operators must keep their records on a server inside Greece. And Greek government bodies must run their main systems on state-operated clouds. Health, banking and insurance have extra hoops but no location rule.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: You need one of the standard European transfer tools before data leaves Europe. The simplest is sending it to a country the European Commission has already approved. If the destination is not approved, you sign the European Commission's standard contract with the recipient, or use approved group-wide internal rules, and you write down why you think the data will still be safe there. Greece adds no extra permission, filing or fee of its own.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: Six bodies, and all six are genuinely working. The Hellenic Data Protection Authority is the main privacy regulator and is issuing numbered decisions and fines every month — its most recent published decisions run to July 2026 and include fines on a bank and an electricity supplier. A separate constitutional authority polices the secrecy of communications. There is also a national cybersecurity authority, a telecoms regulator, the central bank for finance and insurance, and a gambling regulator. This is not a paper regime.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Both directions apply, and they collide. Business books must be kept five years. Medical files must be kept ten years in a private practice and twenty years everywhere else. Online gambling records must be kept ten years. Telecoms connection records must be kept exactly twelve months and then automatically deleted. In the other direction, the European rule says you must not keep personal data longer than you need it. When a specific keeping rule and the general deleting rule clash, the specific keeping rule wins.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count three clocks, not one. If personal data is lost or exposed, you have 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator. If you run important infrastructure, you have only 24 hours to send a first warning to the national cybersecurity authority, then 72 hours for a fuller report and one month for the final one. If you are a phone or internet provider, you have 24 hours to report a personal data breach and a separate duty to tell the communications secrecy authority. Missing the 24-hour clocks is the most common failure.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that will cost you a weekend. First, a child in Greece can consent to an online service at fifteen, not sixteen — so an age gate built to the European default is set wrong. Second, misusing personal data is a crime here, with prison time, not just a fine. Third, several articles of the Greek privacy law are printed in the statute but the regulator has formally said they must not be applied, because they clash with European law. Fourth, telecoms connection records must physically stay in Greece. Fifth, government bodies cannot simply pick a commercial cloud.High confidence
What's about to change?: Three dated changes. Electronic invoicing between businesses became compulsory for large Greek companies on 2 March 2026 and becomes compulsory for everyone else on 1 October 2026. Greece's new artificial intelligence law took effect on 22 July 2026 and forces public bodies to register every artificial intelligence system before switching it on. And from 12 January 2027 European law bans cloud providers from charging you to move your data out.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Telecoms — Νόμος 3917/2011 — Διατήρηση δεδομένων που παράγονται ή υποβάλλονται σε επεξεργασία σε συνάρτηση με την παροχή υπηρεσιών ηλεκτρονικών επικοινωνιών
Online gaming — Νόμος 4002/2011 — Ρύθμιση της αγοράς παιγνίων, άρθρο 47, και Κανονισμοί Παιγνίων (ΥΑ 79305/2020 και 79835/2020)
Government — Νόμος 4727/2020 — Ψηφιακή Διακυβέρνηση, άρθρο 87 (Κυβερνητικά νέφη)

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	ThailandChecked 18 August 2026	GreeceChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	Thailand does not make you keep personal data inside the country, but data cannot leave until you have picked and documented a legal route. The regulator never published a list of approved destination countries, so consent and written safeguards do all the work. A foreign company selling into Thailand needs a named representative living there. Getting it wrong can mean fines, double damages, and in the worst cases jail.	For most businesses Greece is a normal European country: personal data can leave, as long as you use one of the standard European transfer tools. But Greece has two hard walls that Europe does not. Phone and internet connection records must physically sit on machines inside Greece. Online gambling operators must keep their records on a server inside Greece too. The privacy regulator is fully staffed and fining companies today.
The catch	The permissive headline is about residency only. The burden is high and the pain is elsewhere: a person in Thailand who answers for you personally, parental consent for anyone under twenty in many cases, 90-day traffic logs that catch any business offering guest wi-fi, compensation owed even when you were not careless, and a technology-crime regime that forces banks and telecoms companies to hand customer data into a government-run exchange. Payments, government workloads and digital platforms each add their own regulator gate on top.	The relaxed European headline stops being true the moment you touch three things. Telecoms connection records must be stored on physical media inside Greek territory for twelve months. Online gambling records must sit on a server or safe inside Greece for ten years. And Greek public bodies must run their central systems on the Greek state's own clouds, not on a commercial cloud of their choosing. Outside those three, plus the health and public sectors, Greece imposes no storage-location rule of its own.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. The privacy law reaches a company with no office in Thailand if it offers goods or services to people who are in Thailand, or if it tracks what those people do. Payment is irrelevant — a free service counts. There is no revenue or headcount floor to fall below. A foreign company caught this way must appoint, in writing, a representative who is physically in Thailand and who can be held answerable with no cap on liability.High confidence	Yes, it reaches a foreign company with no office in Greece. The European privacy rules apply to anyone anywhere who offers goods or services to people in Greece, or who watches what they do online. The Greek national law adds that it also covers anyone processing data on Greek soil. There is no size or revenue threshold that lets you off. If you have no establishment anywhere in Europe, you must appoint a written representative inside the European Union.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	Yes, in most cases. Thailand does not make companies keep a copy of personal data inside the country. But data cannot simply leave: you must first have a legal route, and the regulator has never published a list of approved destination countries, so the 'this country is safe enough' route is unusable in practice. Everyone falls back on informed consent, contract necessity, approved group-wide rules, or their own written safeguards. Several industries add a second gate on top, described below.High confidence	In general, yes. Greece adds no storage-location rule of its own to the European baseline, so ordinary business data can be sent abroad once you have the right European transfer paperwork. Three industries break that rule completely. Telecoms companies must keep their connection records on machines physically inside Greece. Online gambling operators must keep their records on a server inside Greece. And Greek government bodies must run their main systems on state-operated clouds. Health, banking and insurance have extra hoops but no location rule.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	There is no permission slip to apply for and no banned-country list. You pick a route and document it before the data moves. The routes are: the destination is judged to have good enough protection; one of six statutory exceptions such as informed consent; group-wide rules certified by the regulator; or your own written safeguards that a person in Thailand could actually enforce. The 'good enough country' route is dead on arrival because the regulator has published no approved list, so in practice the safeguards route and consent do all the work.Medium confidence	You need one of the standard European transfer tools before data leaves Europe. The simplest is sending it to a country the European Commission has already approved. If the destination is not approved, you sign the European Commission's standard contract with the recipient, or use approved group-wide internal rules, and you write down why you think the data will still be safe there. Greece adds no extra permission, filing or fee of its own.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	The Office of the Personal Data Protection Committee, usually shortened to PDPC, sits under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society. It is real and staffed: it has a serving Secretary-General, it runs walk-in complaint centres in five provinces and opened another in Ubon Ratchathani on 17 August 2026, and it is executing Cabinet-level instructions on data breaches. Complaints are decided by an Expert Committee that can order you to stop, order you to fix things, and impose fines itself. Other regulators run their own lanes: the cyber-security agency for critical infrastructure, the central bank for payments, and the electronic transactions agency for digital platforms.Medium confidence	Six bodies, and all six are genuinely working. The Hellenic Data Protection Authority is the main privacy regulator and is issuing numbered decisions and fines every month — its most recent published decisions run to July 2026 and include fines on a bank and an electricity supplier. A separate constitutional authority polices the secrecy of communications. There is also a national cybersecurity authority, a telecoms regulator, the central bank for finance and insurance, and a gambling regulator. This is not a paper regime.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	Thailand pushes in both directions at once. The floor: anyone who provides a computer or internet service to other people must keep traffic logs for at least 90 days, and an official can order that stretched to as much as two years. The ceiling: the privacy law makes you build a system that actually deletes personal data once your stated retention period runs out or the data is no longer needed. When the two collide, the keep-it duty wins, because the delete duty has a written carve-out for complying with law and for defending legal claims.High confidence	Both directions apply, and they collide. Business books must be kept five years. Medical files must be kept ten years in a private practice and twenty years everywhere else. Online gambling records must be kept ten years. Telecoms connection records must be kept exactly twelve months and then automatically deleted. In the other direction, the European rule says you must not keep personal data longer than you need it. When a specific keeping rule and the general deleting rule clash, the specific keeping rule wins.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	Count three clocks, not one. First: tell the privacy regulator about a personal data breach without delay and within 72 hours of becoming aware, unless the breach carries no risk to people; if the risk to people is high you must also tell the affected individuals, with advice on what to do, without delay. Second: if you run critical information infrastructure, a significant cyber threat must be reported to the national cyber-security agency and to your own sector regulator, and silence without good reason is itself an offence. Third: if you are a bank or a telecoms operator and you suspect technology crime, you must push customer account and transaction data into a shared government-run system immediately.High confidence	Count three clocks, not one. If personal data is lost or exposed, you have 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator. If you run important infrastructure, you have only 24 hours to send a first warning to the national cybersecurity authority, then 72 hours for a fuller report and one month for the final one. If you are a phone or internet provider, you have 24 hours to report a personal data breach and a separate duty to tell the communications secrecy authority. Missing the 24-hour clocks is the most common failure.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five things that are not in the brochure. Children: Thailand needs a parent's consent for a child aged ten or under, and for older teenagers too unless the act is one the law lets a minor do alone — and a person is a minor in Thailand until twenty. Jail is on the table for misusing sensitive data. You owe compensation even if you were not careless, and a court can add up to double on top. A foreign company must put a named human in Thailand with unlimited authority. And the 90-day log rule catches ordinary businesses that just offer guest wi-fi.High confidence	Five things that will cost you a weekend. First, a child in Greece can consent to an online service at fifteen, not sixteen — so an age gate built to the European default is set wrong. Second, misusing personal data is a crime here, with prison time, not just a fine. Third, several articles of the Greek privacy law are printed in the statute but the regulator has formally said they must not be applied, because they clash with European law. Fourth, telecoms connection records must physically stay in Greece. Fifth, government bodies cannot simply pick a commercial cloud.High confidence
What's about to change?	Nothing in the next twelve months looks like a new statute. What is moving is enforcement reach. The privacy regulator is opening walk-in centres in eight provinces during 2026 to cover all five regions, which means more complaints will actually get filed. The Cabinet decided on 11 August 2026 to require multi-factor login protection across government to stop leaked passwords turning into data breaches, and the ministry is pushing the same expectation across all twenty ministries. The bigger risk is not new law but switches the government already holds and can flip without warning.Medium confidence	Three dated changes. Electronic invoicing between businesses became compulsory for large Greek companies on 2 March 2026 and becomes compulsory for everyone else on 1 October 2026. Greece's new artificial intelligence law took effect on 22 July 2026 and forces public bodies to register every artificial intelligence system before switching it on. And from 12 January 2027 European law bans cloud providers from charging you to move your data out.High confidence
Hardest industry wall	None found.	Telecoms — Νόμος 3917/2011 — Διατήρηση δεδομένων που παράγονται ή υποβάλλονται σε επεξεργασία σε συνάρτηση με την παροχή υπηρεσιών ηλεκτρονικών επικοινωνιών Online gaming — Νόμος 4002/2011 — Ρύθμιση της αγοράς παιγνίων, άρθρο 47, και Κανονισμοί Παιγνίων (ΥΑ 79305/2020 και 79835/2020) Government — Νόμος 4727/2020 — Ψηφιακή Διακυβέρνηση, άρθρο 87 (Κυβερνητικά νέφη)