Law / Egypt

Egypt

4 of 6 named instruments researched to a stage, across three of the six areas of law we track: 4 in force. As of 2 September 2026.

AI law none researched
Privacy law 1
Scraping law 2
Cybersecurity law none researched
Age gating law none researched
News aggregation law 1

in forceenacted but not yet in forceproposedrepealed, withdrawn or blocked

Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.

Privacy law1 instrument, 1 in force

Research summary (185 words)

Egypt's Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020 (PDPL) is a comprehensive regime covering any recipient, controller, or processor handling personal data of natural persons that is processed electronically, in whole or in part.

It defines Sensitive Personal Data broadly (health, genetic and biometric data, financial data, religious beliefs, political views, criminal records, and, in all cases, any data relating to a child) and requires a license from the Personal Data Protection Center before any such data is collected, transferred, or processed.

Cross-border transfer is prohibited unless the destination country's protection level meets or exceeds Egypt's own and a Center license or permit is obtained, or the data subject gives explicit consent.

The Center's Executive Regulations (Ministerial Decree No. 816 of 2025) were only issued on 1 November 2025, five years after the PDPL itself took effect, and set a one-year transitional period for organizations to align their operations before full enforcement; secondary sources differ on whether that grace period runs to October or November 2026, and the exact Official Gazette publication date of the Decree could not be confirmed from a reachable source.

Comprehensive regime

Law No. 151 of 2020 Promulgating the Personal Data Protection Law

Law No. 151 of 2020 Promulgating the Personal Data Protection LawPersonal Data Protection Law, English translation as republished by the ILO's NATLEX legislative database

In force since 16 October 2020. Binds public and private bodies.

What this law does

Egypt's comprehensive personal-data statute. It requires a lawful basis (ordinarily the data subject's consent) for processing, imposes a licensing regime for Sensitive Personal Data (including biometric identifiers and any data relating to a child, which is always sensitive), prohibits cross-border transfer absent equivalent protection and a Center license, and requires notifying the Personal Data Protection Center of a breach within 72 hours.

Enforcement is criminal: unauthorized processing of ordinary Personal Data carries a fine of EGP 100,000 to 1,000,000, rising to imprisonment plus a fine of EGP 200,000 to 2,000,000 where done for gain or to endanger the data subject, and unauthorized processing of Sensitive Personal Data carries imprisonment plus a fine of EGP 500,000 to 5,000,000.

The Law's own Executive Regulations, needed to operationalize its licensing and consent rules, were not issued until Ministerial Decree No. 816 of 2025, more than five years after the Law itself took effect.

What it requires

Scraping law2 instruments, 2 in force

Research summary (299 words)

Open-web crawling of public pages carries no dedicated Egyptian statute; the general Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law No. 175 of 2018 is the applicable authority for unauthorized-access questions, criminalizing intentional access to, or unlawful remaining present in, a restricted website, private account, or information system, with escalated penalties where access is coupled with copying, altering, or republishing data (Arts. 14-15).

No Egyptian court decision addressing how "authorization" is read for a public, unauthenticated page, or addressing terms-of-service enforceability (browsewrap versus clickwrap), was located; ordinary Civil Code offer-and-acceptance principles and the Electronic Signature Law No. 15 of 2004 (which gives electronic records and signatures legal recognition) would be the applicable general law for a contract-formation question, but this is unsettled rather than a specific regime.

Copyright protects a database as a compilation, not through a separate sui generis database right: Law No. 82 of 2002 on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights protects "databases, whether readable by computer or otherwise" as a category of protected work, and its exceptions are enumerated (personal use, quotation and analysis for criticism, teaching, and library or legal-proceeding copying) rather than a general fair-use or text-and-data-mining carve-out; nothing in the Law addresses AI training specifically, and reproducing all or a substantial part of a database remains an act the author may prevent even after the exceptions.

Personal-data reach over scraped public personal data is governed by the Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020, researched in full under the privacy topic, and its broad, undifferentiated definition of personal data with no publicly-available carve-out reaches personal data regardless of whether it was scraped from a public page.

No specific unfair-competition or misappropriation doctrine addressed to scraping, and no case law or regulatory statement giving robots.txt legal weight or addressing AI-training-specific access rules, was located.

Computer misuse

Law No. 175 of 2018 on Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes

Law No. 175 of 2018 on Anti-Cyber and Information Technology CrimesAnti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law, English translation published by Andersen's Egypt office

In force since 15 August 2018. Binds public and private bodies.

What this law does

Egypt's general computer-misuse statute. Article 14 punishes intentional access to, or unintentional access and unlawful continued presence in, a restricted website, private account, or information system with imprisonment of not less than one year and a fine of EGP 50,000 to 100,000, rising to not less than two years and a fine of EGP 100,000 to 200,000 where the access results in destroying, altering, copying, or republishing data.

Article 15 separately punishes exceeding the scope of access rights legally granted on a website, account, or system. Penalties are further aggravated where the target belongs to, or is operated on behalf of, the State or a public legal entity. The Law does not define "authorization" specifically for a public, unauthenticated web page, and no Egyptian court decision construing Articles 14-15 in that context was located.

What it requires

Database right

Law No. 82 of 2002 on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, Copyright and Database Chapter (Book Three)

Law No. 82 of 2002 Copyright and Database Chapter (Book Three), on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, as amended by Law No. 178 of 2020Law No. 82 of 2002 on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

In force since 3 June 2002. Binds public and private bodies.

What this law does

Book Three of Egypt's consolidated IP statute protects "databases, whether readable by computer or otherwise" as a category of copyrightable work (Art. 140(3)), not through a separate EU-style sui generis database right: protection rests on the database being an original compilation, the same footing as a computer program. Even where a personal-use or teaching exception would otherwise apply, the author may still prevent reproduction or copying of all or a substantial part of a database.

The Law's exceptions are enumerated rather than a general fair-use standard: personal non-commercial copying, analysis or quotation for criticism or information, short extracts for teaching, and narrow library, archiving, and legal-proceeding copying (Art. 171); none addresses text-and-data-mining or AI training. The Law has been amended several times since 2002, most recently up to Law No. 178 of 2020.

What it requires

News aggregation law1 instrument, 1 in force

Research summary (148 words)

Egypt has no press-publisher neighbouring right, no mandatory platform-to-publisher bargaining code, no recognized hot-news misappropriation doctrine, and no located statute or case law addressing hyperlinking or framing liability specifically; each of those five dimensions is a sourced absence rather than an unresolved question.

The one relevant instrument is a general copyright exception: Article 171(4) of Law No. 82 of 2002 on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights lets any person analyze a published work, or quote or excerpt from it, for the purpose of criticism, discussion, or information, without the author's authorization.

The exception is framed around analysis and criticism rather than a dedicated news-reporting privilege, and no Egyptian court decision applying it to a systematic news aggregator, as opposed to an individual quoting for commentary, was located. The Law predates the concept of a machine-readable text-and-data-mining reservation entirely, so no opt-out mechanism of that kind exists either.

Snippet reproduction

Law No. 82 of 2002 on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, quotation and analysis exception (Book Three, Art. 171(4))

Law No. 82 of 2002 News Quotation Exception (Book Three), on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, as amended by Law No. 178 of 2020Law No. 82 of 2002 on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

In force since 3 June 2002. Binds public and private bodies.

What this law does

Article 171(4) permits any person, without the author's authorization and after a work's publication, to "make an analysis of the work, or excerpts or quotations therefrom, for the purpose of criticism, discussion or information."

The exception is not tied to the news media specifically and carries no headline-versus-substantial-extract threshold of its own; whether it reaches an aggregator's systematic reproduction of headlines and snippets, as opposed to an individual's quotation for commentary, has not been tested in a reported Egyptian decision.

Egypt has no separate press-publisher neighbouring right, no compelled platform-to-publisher bargaining regime, no recognized hot-news or misappropriation doctrine distinct from ordinary copyright and unfair-competition law, and no located case law on hyperlinking or framed display.

Note and primary source

This page covers the instruments LexLint has researched to a stage. Instruments named in the corpus but not yet researched are counted in the head and are not listed here. Every entry carries its own primary source on its note page. This is a research index, not legal advice.