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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.

NepalChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: MediumEnforcement: Dormant

In one paragraph: Nepal's privacy law says nothing about sending data abroad, so on paper data can leave freely. There is no privacy regulator at all: breaches are criminal matters taken to a local court, the maximum fine is about 215 US dollars, and no case has produced a public penalty. The real constraint is a 2025 rule on data centres and cloud services, which says customers may only buy hosting from providers on a government list.
The catch: The relaxed headline stops being true the moment you look at where the data physically sits. Since January 2025 anyone buying data centre or cloud services in Nepal is supposed to use only providers listed by the Department of Information Technology, and to get listed a provider must be a Nepal-registered company with a physical building in Nepal. Government security agencies must use the state's own data centre, other government bodies are being moved into it, and card payments made in Nepali rupees must be settled inside Nepal.
Does this apply to me?: It is unclear, and that is the honest answer. The Privacy Act covers public bodies and companies handling people's information, but it never says whether it reaches a company sitting outside Nepal, and it does not ask you to appoint anyone locally. Two other laws clearly do reach you from abroad: the computer-crime law applies to acts done outside Nepal that involve a computer located in Nepal, and the central bank's payment licensing policy expressly covers firms set up abroad that carry out payment business inside Nepal. There is no revenue or company-size threshold to fall below.Medium confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Under the privacy law, yes — it is silent on sending personal data out of Nepal, so there is nothing to comply with. But the country still has walls, and they are about where the machines are rather than where the data goes. Since January 2025 anyone buying data centre or cloud services is meant to use only providers on the government's published list, and listing requires a Nepal-registered company with a building in Nepal. Government security agencies must use the state's own data centre, and card payments made in Nepali rupees must be settled inside Nepal.Medium confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Nothing. There is no approval to get, no standard contract to sign and no list of approved countries, because Nepal's privacy law simply does not deal with sending data abroad. The control that does exist works the other way round: it is an approved-supplier list for hosting. The Department of Information Technology lists data centre and cloud providers, and customers are told to use only listed ones.Medium confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: For personal data, nobody. Nepal has no privacy regulator and no data protection authority. A person whose privacy is breached files a criminal complaint in their local district court within three months, and the court can also award compensation. The bodies that are genuinely active work on cyber security and on industry rules, not on privacy: the National Cyber Security Center published advisories as recently as April 2026, the telecoms authority collects security audit reports, the central bank issues payment directives, and the Department of Information Technology is running the data centre listing scheme.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is a floor and almost no ceiling. Tax records must be kept for five years after the tax year ends. Telecom operators must keep security logs for at least six months and internet address-translation logs for at least three months. Data centres must keep camera footage for at least three months. Going the other way, the privacy law has no general delete-by date, so the only real deletion duty found is a telecom rule that says paper customer forms must be destroyed once they have been scanned.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There is no general duty to report a personal data breach in Nepal — not to a regulator, and not to the people affected. No rule found sets a deadline in hours. Two narrower duties do exist. A data centre or cloud provider that finds someone has got into its systems must tell the regulator and the National Cyber Security Center immediately, by the fastest means available. A telecom operator hit by a security incident must work with a standing task force at the telecoms authority.Medium confidence
What's the trap?: Five. First, privacy breaches are criminal, not administrative — the exposure is up to three years in prison for an individual, not a corporate fine. Second, a victim has only three months from the act to complain, so most claims die of old age. Third, your cloud vendor must be on the government's list, which makes this a supplier problem rather than a policy problem. Fourth, anyone under 18 needs a guardian's consent — there is no lower digital age. Fifth, the online-content offence in the electronic transactions law carries up to five years in prison for material judged contrary to public morality, and it is written vaguely enough to catch ordinary posts.High confidence
What's about to change?: No data protection law is on the way that we could find, and no bill for one is before parliament. What is moving is telecoms and broadcasting: the ministry published discussion papers for a new Telecommunications Bill and a National Mass Communication Bill on 5 August 2026. The telecoms authority is consulting on amending its 2020 cyber security rules, on a framework for streaming and messaging services, and on a rule to force the move to newer internet addressing.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: All industries — डाटा सेन्टर तथा क्लाउड सेवा (सञ्चालन तथा व्यवस्थापन) निर्देशिका, २०८१ (Data Center and Cloud Service (Operation and Management) Directives, 2081)
Payments — भुक्तानी प्रणालीसम्बन्धी एकीकृत निर्देशन, २०८२ (Unified Directive on Payment Systems, 2082)

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	ThailandChecked 18 August 2026	NepalChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active	Depends on your industry Work: Medium Enforcement: Dormant
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.	Nepal's privacy law says nothing about sending data abroad, so on paper data can leave freely. There is no privacy regulator at all: breaches are criminal matters taken to a local court, the maximum fine is about 215 US dollars, and no case has produced a public penalty. The real constraint is a 2025 rule on data centres and cloud services, which says customers may only buy hosting from providers on a government list.
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 headline stops being true the moment you look at where the data physically sits. Since January 2025 anyone buying data centre or cloud services in Nepal is supposed to use only providers listed by the Department of Information Technology, and to get listed a provider must be a Nepal-registered company with a physical building in Nepal. Government security agencies must use the state's own data centre, other government bodies are being moved into it, and card payments made in Nepali rupees must be settled inside Nepal.
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	It is unclear, and that is the honest answer. The Privacy Act covers public bodies and companies handling people's information, but it never says whether it reaches a company sitting outside Nepal, and it does not ask you to appoint anyone locally. Two other laws clearly do reach you from abroad: the computer-crime law applies to acts done outside Nepal that involve a computer located in Nepal, and the central bank's payment licensing policy expressly covers firms set up abroad that carry out payment business inside Nepal. There is no revenue or company-size threshold to fall below.Medium 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	Under the privacy law, yes — it is silent on sending personal data out of Nepal, so there is nothing to comply with. But the country still has walls, and they are about where the machines are rather than where the data goes. Since January 2025 anyone buying data centre or cloud services is meant to use only providers on the government's published list, and listing requires a Nepal-registered company with a building in Nepal. Government security agencies must use the state's own data centre, and card payments made in Nepali rupees must be settled inside Nepal.Medium 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	Nothing. There is no approval to get, no standard contract to sign and no list of approved countries, because Nepal's privacy law simply does not deal with sending data abroad. The control that does exist works the other way round: it is an approved-supplier list for hosting. The Department of Information Technology lists data centre and cloud providers, and customers are told to use only listed ones.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	For personal data, nobody. Nepal has no privacy regulator and no data protection authority. A person whose privacy is breached files a criminal complaint in their local district court within three months, and the court can also award compensation. The bodies that are genuinely active work on cyber security and on industry rules, not on privacy: the National Cyber Security Center published advisories as recently as April 2026, the telecoms authority collects security audit reports, the central bank issues payment directives, and the Department of Information Technology is running the data centre listing scheme.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	There is a floor and almost no ceiling. Tax records must be kept for five years after the tax year ends. Telecom operators must keep security logs for at least six months and internet address-translation logs for at least three months. Data centres must keep camera footage for at least three months. Going the other way, the privacy law has no general delete-by date, so the only real deletion duty found is a telecom rule that says paper customer forms must be destroyed once they have been scanned.Medium 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	There is no general duty to report a personal data breach in Nepal — not to a regulator, and not to the people affected. No rule found sets a deadline in hours. Two narrower duties do exist. A data centre or cloud provider that finds someone has got into its systems must tell the regulator and the National Cyber Security Center immediately, by the fastest means available. A telecom operator hit by a security incident must work with a standing task force at the telecoms authority.Medium 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. First, privacy breaches are criminal, not administrative — the exposure is up to three years in prison for an individual, not a corporate fine. Second, a victim has only three months from the act to complain, so most claims die of old age. Third, your cloud vendor must be on the government's list, which makes this a supplier problem rather than a policy problem. Fourth, anyone under 18 needs a guardian's consent — there is no lower digital age. Fifth, the online-content offence in the electronic transactions law carries up to five years in prison for material judged contrary to public morality, and it is written vaguely enough to catch ordinary posts.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	No data protection law is on the way that we could find, and no bill for one is before parliament. What is moving is telecoms and broadcasting: the ministry published discussion papers for a new Telecommunications Bill and a National Mass Communication Bill on 5 August 2026. The telecoms authority is consulting on amending its 2020 cyber security rules, on a framework for streaming and messaging services, and on a rule to force the move to newer internet addressing.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall	None found.	All industries — डाटा सेन्टर तथा क्लाउड सेवा (सञ्चालन तथा व्यवस्थापन) निर्देशिका, २०८१ (Data Center and Cloud Service (Operation and Management) Directives, 2081) Payments — भुक्तानी प्रणालीसम्बन्धी एकीकृत निर्देशन, २०८२ (Unified Directive on Payment Systems, 2082)