Data Protection Regulations in ASEAN: Current Landscape and Prospects for Regional Collaboration

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_44How to use a DOI?

Keywords

ASEAN; Data Protection; Digital Economy; Cross-Border Data Flow

Abstract

Following the vigorous development of the global digital economy, data has become a crucial strategic resource driving economic growth, and data protection has consequently emerged as a core issue attracting global attention. As emerging forces in the digital economy, ASEAN countries’ data protection status not only plays a vital role in regional economic cooperation and enterprise development but also concerns the security and protection of personal information. This paper conducts an in-depth review of the data protection regulations of the major ASEAN member states and precisely focuses on the prominent problems within the region. These issues include the uneven progress of data protection legislation across countries, significant disparities in data protection regimes, and the weak binding force of regional framework agreements. Undoubtedly, the existence of these problems has brought numerous obstacles to the integration process of the digital economy in the ASEAN region. Drawing on comparative insights，this paper actively calls for taking the “ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement” (DEFA) as an important opportunity to promote the establishment of unified data protection standards within the region. At the same time, it advocates the construction of a mutual trust mechanism and a cross-border regulatory cooperation system to provide a solid institutional guarantee for regional digital economic integration. By strengthening regional cooperation, countries can jointly address the various challenges brought about by the development of the digital economy, so as to achieve the sustainable and healthy development of the digital economy in the ASEAN region.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Ma Hanyu
AU  - Zuryati Bt Mohamed Yusoff
AU  - Fariza Romli
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/07
TI  - Data Protection Regulations in ASEAN: Current Landscape and Prospects for Regional Collaboration
BT  - Proceedings of the UUM 13th International Legal Conference 2025 (UUMILC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 633
EP  - 648
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_44
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_44
ID  - Hanyu2026
ER  -