Cross-Border Transfer Rules
Transfer rules for 44 African regimes, coded from the primary statutes and cited article by article.
Can I move personal data from A to B?
Pick a source and a destination regime. The answer reads the destination's statute, cited article by article. It is legal information, not a transfer opinion.
Legal information, not legal advice. This page maps what each statute requires so the right question reaches qualified counsel in the right jurisdiction. It is not a transfer opinion and does not substitute for one. A cell marked with a dash means a mechanism was not settled at cell level from the verified text, never that it is absent. Always read the primary source and take advice before transferring personal data.
The mechanism matrix
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Adequacy, safeguards, consent, regulator authorisation and localisation for all 44 verified regimes, cited to the statute. Enter your email to open it.
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| Jurisdiction | Adequacy | Safeguards | Consent | Authorisation | Localisation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AlgeriaNorth Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| EgyptNorth Africa | Yes | No | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| MoroccoNorth Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| TunisiaNorth Africa | Yes | No | No | Required | No mandate |
| BeninWest Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| Burkina FasoWest Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| Cape VerdeWest Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| Côte d'IvoireWest Africa | Yes | No | No | Required | No mandate |
| GhanaWest Africa | No | Yes | — | Not required | No mandate |
| GuineaWest Africa | Yes | No | No | Required | No mandate |
| MaliWest Africa | Yes | Yes | No | Required | No mandate |
| MauritaniaWest Africa | — | — | — | Required | No mandate |
| NigerWest Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| NigeriaWest Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not required | No mandate |
| SenegalWest Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| TogoWest Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| CameroonCentral Africa | Yes | Yes | No | Required | No mandate |
| Central African RepublicCentral Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| ChadCentral Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| Democratic Republic of the CongoCentral Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| Equatorial GuineaCentral Africa | Yes | No | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| GabonCentral Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| Republic of the CongoCentral Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| São Tomé and PríncipeCentral Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| BurundiEast Africa | Yes | Yes | No | Conditional | No mandate |
| ComorosEast Africa | Yes | No | No | Required | No mandate |
| DjiboutiEast Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | No mandate |
| EthiopiaEast Africa | Yes | No | Yes | Conditional | Broad |
| KenyaEast Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not required | Sensitive |
| MadagascarEast Africa | Yes | — | — | Conditional | No mandate |
| MalawiEast Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not required | No mandate |
| MauritiusEast Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not required | No mandate |
| RwandaEast Africa | No | Yes | Yes | Conditional | Broad |
| SeychellesEast Africa | Yes | Yes | — | — | No mandate |
| SomaliaEast Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not required | No mandate |
| TanzaniaEast Africa | Yes | — | — | Conditional | No mandate |
| UgandaEast Africa | Yes | — | Yes | Not required | No mandate |
| AngolaSouthern Africa | Yes | — | Yes | Required | No mandate |
| BotswanaSouthern Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | Broad |
| EswatiniSouthern Africa | Yes | Yes | — | Not required | No mandate |
| LesothoSouthern Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not required | No mandate |
| South AfricaSouthern Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not required | No mandate |
| ZambiaSouthern Africa | Yes | Yes | Yes | Conditional | Broad |
| ZimbabweSouthern Africa | Yes | — | — | Conditional | No mandate |
Key: Yes / Not required · No / Broad · Required / Conditional / Sensitive · a dash means not settled in the text · No mandate. Hover any cell for its statute citation.
Need a transfer opinion, or the data in your product?
The matrix maps what each statute requires. When you need a reasoned view on a specific transfer, or the coded dataset behind this page, we work with you directly.
Coverage and method
A regime renders here only when it has been read against its primary statute (law-firm summaries routinely get transfer thresholds wrong, and a page that lawyers cite cannot inherit those errors). 44 of the 44 in-force regimes are verified; 0 more are read but held back pending an article-level check of a clean primary text, and 10 states have no comprehensive law in force. The withheld regimes move into the matrix as their texts are verified. The full method is in the Rulebook report and on the methodology page. Corrections and verification requests: info@lawlab.africa.
Every published cell traces to a named statute; the underlying dataset is licensed under the data licensing terms and is not distributed raw.