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

Countries

UzbekistanChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: Uzbekistan used to say that data about its citizens had to sit on machines inside the country. In March 2026 it dropped that blanket rule. Most personal data may now be stored abroad if the destination country is on a new government approved list, or you use an approved contract, or you meet international standards. Three kinds of data still cannot leave at all.
The catch: The relaxed headline stops at three walls. Face and fingerprint data, genetic data, and data about customers of telephone and internet companies must be kept inside Uzbekistan. Banks face a separate rule that bans handing the running of their systems to an outside supplier, which blocks most managed cloud arrangements. Detailed maps are handled under state-secrecy rules.
Does this apply to me?: The law is written to cover the handling of personal data whatever tools are used, and it was aimed at foreign online platforms when the storage rules were first tightened in 2021. It does not set a size or revenue threshold, so a small foreign company is treated the same as a large one. We found no clear wording that forces a foreign company to appoint a representative living in Uzbekistan, and no explicit sentence saying the law follows the data outside the country.Medium confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Mostly yes, but only if you can point to one of three permissions. Face and fingerprint data, genetic data, and data about customers of telephone and internet companies must stay in Uzbekistan. Everything else may be stored and processed abroad if the destination country is on the government's approved list, or you sign an approved standard contract or use approved group rules, or you follow recognised international data standards.Medium confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is an approved list. Before ordinary personal data leaves the country you need one of three things: the destination is on the Cabinet of Ministers' list of countries with adequate protection, or you use the standard contract terms or group rules approved by the data authority, or you meet recognised international data standards. The country list was signed on 29 July 2026 and started on 3 August 2026, so it is brand new. We could not read which countries are on it, and no approved standard contract template appears to have been published yet.Medium confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The data regulator is the State Centre for Personalization, which sits under the Cabinet of Ministers. It keeps the national register of personal data databases and can issue orders that companies and individuals must obey. It is a working government body and the registration service has run since 2020, but we found no published fines or decisions, so treat enforcement as waking up rather than active. Cyber incidents are handled by a different body, the State Security Service, and banks answer separately to the Central Bank.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: The ceiling is clear: personal data must be destroyed once the purpose is achieved, once consent is withdrawn, once the agreed period ends, or when a court orders it. The floor is thinner. Organisations covered by the cybersecurity law must keep backup copies covering at least the last three months. We did not verify the general tax and accounting minimum keeping periods during this run, so plan on the usual company record rules as well.Medium confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There are two clocks and they are not the same. The privacy law itself contains no duty to report a data breach to the regulator or to the people affected — we checked the text on 18 August 2026 and found none. The cybersecurity law is where reporting lives: organisations covered by it must tell the State Security Service about cyber incidents. Banks also report to the Central Bank under its security rules. We could not confirm a firm deadline in hours for any of these.Medium confidence
What's the trap?: First, every database of personal data has to be entered in a national register — it is a notification, it is free and it takes five working days, but skipping it is still a breach. Second, breaking the personal data rules can be a crime, not just a fine, so a named person can be prosecuted. Third, the face and fingerprint wall catches ordinary products like fingerprint logins and identity checks, not just spy technology. Fourth, banks are banned from handing the running of their technology and security systems to an outside supplier, which rules out most managed cloud and outsourced security operations. Fifth, the standard contract route for sending data abroad exists on paper but no approved template appears to have been published.Medium confidence
What's about to change?: The big change already happened in March 2026 and the follow-up is still landing. The approved country list started on 3 August 2026 and can be widened or cut by the Cabinet of Ministers at any time. The approved standard contract for sending data abroad is still missing, so watch for it. A new Tashkent International Financial Centre opened its legal regime on 25 July 2026 and its law also touched the privacy law, which may create a separate rulebook inside the centre. A national cybersecurity strategy was signed in March 2026.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: All industries — Закон «О персональных данных», статья 27-1, часть 2
Telecoms — Закон «О персональных данных», статья 27-1, часть 2 (данные пользователей услуг операторов телекоммуникаций)
Finance — Кредит бюроларининг ахборот хавфсизлиги ва киберхавфсизлигига доир минимал талаблар тўғрисидаги низом
Mapping and location — Положение о порядке установления ограничительных грифов картографических и геодезических материалов (данных)
Government — О мерах по организации деятельности Центра обработки данных системы «Электронное правительство»

United KingdomChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Data can leave the United Kingdom, but you need the right paperwork first. Sending it to Europe or to about fifteen other approved places needs nothing extra. Anywhere else needs a government-published contract and a risk check. No general law forces data to stay in Britain. The privacy regulator is busy and its fines are getting bigger.
The catch: The easy headline stops being true in three places. Telecoms operators must keep backup copies of key network information inside the United Kingdom. National Health Service patient records may only be sent to countries the United Kingdom has formally approved, which rules out the standard contract route. And government material classified SECRET or above cannot sit in public cloud at all. Everyone else can store data abroad with the right contract in place.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. British privacy law reaches a company anywhere in the world if it deliberately offers goods or services to people in the United Kingdom, or watches what they do online. There is no size or revenue floor to hide under. If you are caught and have no British office, you generally have to name a representative in the United Kingdom, unless you are a public body or your processing is rare and low risk.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with paperwork. The United Kingdom has no general law forcing data to stay in the country. Send it to the European Economic Area or another approved country and you need nothing extra; send it anywhere else and you need an approved contract plus a written risk assessment. Three industries are stricter: telecoms, the health service and classified government work. Banking, payments, insurance, securities, education, online gambling and mapping have no location rule that we could find.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is an approved-list one. If the destination is on the government's approved list you may send data with no extra paperwork. If it is not, you must sign the government's own contract template and run a risk assessment first. The list is well populated: the whole European Economic Area plus Andorra, Argentina, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Israel, Jersey, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland and Uruguay, with partial cover for Canada, Japan and the United States.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Information Commissioner's Office, and it is very much working. It fined Capita fourteen million pounds (about $18 million) in October 2025, Reddit £14.47 million (about $18.5 million) in February 2026, and the owner of Imgur in the same month, and it issues smaller marketing fines almost monthly. Watch a quirk: a replacement body called the Information Commission legally exists but had no staff and did no work in its first financial year, so the old office is still the one that acts.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is no single deletion deadline. The rule is that you keep personal data only as long as you actually need it, and you must be able to explain the period you chose. Pulling the other way are minimum keeping periods: company and tax records for six years, telecoms connection records for up to twelve months if the government serves a notice, and telecoms security data for thirteen months. Where a minimum and a maximum clash, the legal duty to keep wins and you keep the data.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count at least three clocks. Any organisation has 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator about a personal data breach, and must tell the affected people if the risk to them is high. Telecoms and internet providers also have 72 hours under the electronic communications rules — that used to be 24 hours and quietly changed on 20 August 2025. Operators of essential services such as water, energy and transport have their own 72-hour clock to their own regulator.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five. (1) A child can consent at 13 here, not 16 — but the children's design code covers everyone under 18, and the regulator fined Reddit £14.47 million (about $18.5 million) for weak age checks. (2) Telecoms firms must keep some backup data physically in Britain. (3) Health service data can only go to approved countries, so the standard contract does not help you. (4) Misusing personal data can be a crime, not just a fine. (5) The government can secretly order a company to weaken its security, and Apple is fighting one of those orders right now.Medium confidence
What's about to change?: Two things to watch in the next twelve months. A cyber security bill is going through Parliament and will widen incident reporting to data centres and managed service suppliers — it is not law yet, so do not plan as if it were. And the privacy regulator is due to be replaced by a new body called the Information Commission, but only once ministers lay the paperwork, which had not happened by mid-2026. The regulator is also writing a statutory code on artificial intelligence.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Telecoms — The Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations 2022, with the Telecommunications Security Code of Practice 2026 (version 1.1)

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	UzbekistanChecked 18 August 2026	United KingdomChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Waking up	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	Uzbekistan used to say that data about its citizens had to sit on machines inside the country. In March 2026 it dropped that blanket rule. Most personal data may now be stored abroad if the destination country is on a new government approved list, or you use an approved contract, or you meet international standards. Three kinds of data still cannot leave at all.	Data can leave the United Kingdom, but you need the right paperwork first. Sending it to Europe or to about fifteen other approved places needs nothing extra. Anywhere else needs a government-published contract and a risk check. No general law forces data to stay in Britain. The privacy regulator is busy and its fines are getting bigger.
The catch	The relaxed headline stops at three walls. Face and fingerprint data, genetic data, and data about customers of telephone and internet companies must be kept inside Uzbekistan. Banks face a separate rule that bans handing the running of their systems to an outside supplier, which blocks most managed cloud arrangements. Detailed maps are handled under state-secrecy rules.	The easy headline stops being true in three places. Telecoms operators must keep backup copies of key network information inside the United Kingdom. National Health Service patient records may only be sent to countries the United Kingdom has formally approved, which rules out the standard contract route. And government material classified SECRET or above cannot sit in public cloud at all. Everyone else can store data abroad with the right contract in place.
Does this apply to me?	The law is written to cover the handling of personal data whatever tools are used, and it was aimed at foreign online platforms when the storage rules were first tightened in 2021. It does not set a size or revenue threshold, so a small foreign company is treated the same as a large one. We found no clear wording that forces a foreign company to appoint a representative living in Uzbekistan, and no explicit sentence saying the law follows the data outside the country.Medium confidence	Yes. British privacy law reaches a company anywhere in the world if it deliberately offers goods or services to people in the United Kingdom, or watches what they do online. There is no size or revenue floor to hide under. If you are caught and have no British office, you generally have to name a representative in the United Kingdom, unless you are a public body or your processing is rare and low risk.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	Mostly yes, but only if you can point to one of three permissions. Face and fingerprint data, genetic data, and data about customers of telephone and internet companies must stay in Uzbekistan. Everything else may be stored and processed abroad if the destination country is on the government's approved list, or you sign an approved standard contract or use approved group rules, or you follow recognised international data standards.Medium confidence	Yes, with paperwork. The United Kingdom has no general law forcing data to stay in the country. Send it to the European Economic Area or another approved country and you need nothing extra; send it anywhere else and you need an approved contract plus a written risk assessment. Three industries are stricter: telecoms, the health service and classified government work. Banking, payments, insurance, securities, education, online gambling and mapping have no location rule that we could find.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	The model is an approved list. Before ordinary personal data leaves the country you need one of three things: the destination is on the Cabinet of Ministers' list of countries with adequate protection, or you use the standard contract terms or group rules approved by the data authority, or you meet recognised international data standards. The country list was signed on 29 July 2026 and started on 3 August 2026, so it is brand new. We could not read which countries are on it, and no approved standard contract template appears to have been published yet.Medium confidence	The model is an approved-list one. If the destination is on the government's approved list you may send data with no extra paperwork. If it is not, you must sign the government's own contract template and run a risk assessment first. The list is well populated: the whole European Economic Area plus Andorra, Argentina, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Israel, Jersey, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland and Uruguay, with partial cover for Canada, Japan and the United States.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	The data regulator is the State Centre for Personalization, which sits under the Cabinet of Ministers. It keeps the national register of personal data databases and can issue orders that companies and individuals must obey. It is a working government body and the registration service has run since 2020, but we found no published fines or decisions, so treat enforcement as waking up rather than active. Cyber incidents are handled by a different body, the State Security Service, and banks answer separately to the Central Bank.Medium confidence	The Information Commissioner's Office, and it is very much working. It fined Capita fourteen million pounds (about $18 million) in October 2025, Reddit £14.47 million (about $18.5 million) in February 2026, and the owner of Imgur in the same month, and it issues smaller marketing fines almost monthly. Watch a quirk: a replacement body called the Information Commission legally exists but had no staff and did no work in its first financial year, so the old office is still the one that acts.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	The ceiling is clear: personal data must be destroyed once the purpose is achieved, once consent is withdrawn, once the agreed period ends, or when a court orders it. The floor is thinner. Organisations covered by the cybersecurity law must keep backup copies covering at least the last three months. We did not verify the general tax and accounting minimum keeping periods during this run, so plan on the usual company record rules as well.Medium confidence	There is no single deletion deadline. The rule is that you keep personal data only as long as you actually need it, and you must be able to explain the period you chose. Pulling the other way are minimum keeping periods: company and tax records for six years, telecoms connection records for up to twelve months if the government serves a notice, and telecoms security data for thirteen months. Where a minimum and a maximum clash, the legal duty to keep wins and you keep the data.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	There are two clocks and they are not the same. The privacy law itself contains no duty to report a data breach to the regulator or to the people affected — we checked the text on 18 August 2026 and found none. The cybersecurity law is where reporting lives: organisations covered by it must tell the State Security Service about cyber incidents. Banks also report to the Central Bank under its security rules. We could not confirm a firm deadline in hours for any of these.Medium confidence	Count at least three clocks. Any organisation has 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator about a personal data breach, and must tell the affected people if the risk to them is high. Telecoms and internet providers also have 72 hours under the electronic communications rules — that used to be 24 hours and quietly changed on 20 August 2025. Operators of essential services such as water, energy and transport have their own 72-hour clock to their own regulator.High confidence
What's the trap?	First, every database of personal data has to be entered in a national register — it is a notification, it is free and it takes five working days, but skipping it is still a breach. Second, breaking the personal data rules can be a crime, not just a fine, so a named person can be prosecuted. Third, the face and fingerprint wall catches ordinary products like fingerprint logins and identity checks, not just spy technology. Fourth, banks are banned from handing the running of their technology and security systems to an outside supplier, which rules out most managed cloud and outsourced security operations. Fifth, the standard contract route for sending data abroad exists on paper but no approved template appears to have been published.Medium confidence	Five. (1) A child can consent at 13 here, not 16 — but the children's design code covers everyone under 18, and the regulator fined Reddit £14.47 million (about $18.5 million) for weak age checks. (2) Telecoms firms must keep some backup data physically in Britain. (3) Health service data can only go to approved countries, so the standard contract does not help you. (4) Misusing personal data can be a crime, not just a fine. (5) The government can secretly order a company to weaken its security, and Apple is fighting one of those orders right now.Medium confidence
What's about to change?	The big change already happened in March 2026 and the follow-up is still landing. The approved country list started on 3 August 2026 and can be widened or cut by the Cabinet of Ministers at any time. The approved standard contract for sending data abroad is still missing, so watch for it. A new Tashkent International Financial Centre opened its legal regime on 25 July 2026 and its law also touched the privacy law, which may create a separate rulebook inside the centre. A national cybersecurity strategy was signed in March 2026.Medium confidence	Two things to watch in the next twelve months. A cyber security bill is going through Parliament and will widen incident reporting to data centres and managed service suppliers — it is not law yet, so do not plan as if it were. And the privacy regulator is due to be replaced by a new body called the Information Commission, but only once ministers lay the paperwork, which had not happened by mid-2026. The regulator is also writing a statutory code on artificial intelligence.High confidence
Hardest industry wall	All industries — Закон «О персональных данных», статья 27-1, часть 2 Telecoms — Закон «О персональных данных», статья 27-1, часть 2 (данные пользователей услуг операторов телекоммуникаций) Finance — Кредит бюроларининг ахборот хавфсизлиги ва киберхавфсизлигига доир минимал талаблар тўғрисидаги низом Mapping and location — Положение о порядке установления ограничительных грифов картографических и геодезических материалов (данных) Government — О мерах по организации деятельности Центра обработки данных системы «Электронное правительство»	Telecoms — The Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations 2022, with the Telecommunications Security Code of Practice 2026 (version 1.1)