Cybersecurity regulation in Cameroon (2026)

ANTIC processed 32,500 judicial requisitions in 2025 — a 30% increase over 2024, equating to roughly 200 per day — and identified 8,502 vulnerabilities and 8,499 fake accounts impersonating senior officials since January 2024. The figures mark the most acute threat environment Cameroon has recorded and reflect growing digitisation of crime.

Cameroon adopted its first comprehensive data-protection statute, creating a new Personal Data Protection Authority, mandating opt-in consent, data-impact assessments, and records of processing, with extraterritorial reach to any controller processing data of persons in Cameroon. An 18-month grace period runs to 23 June 2026, after which enforcement applies.

Under the World Bank-financed Project for the Acceleration of Digital Transformation of Cameroon (PATNUC), MINPOSTEL equipped ANTIC's CIRT with five high-performance servers, three digital-investigation platforms, twenty storage consoles, thirty specialised workstations, and penetration-testing tools — the largest single upgrade to Cameroon's national cyber-incident response capacity.

President Biya signed Decree No. 2022/169 proclaiming Cameroon's accession to the Council of Europe's Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, the world's pre-eminent cybercrime treaty, binding Cameroon to harmonised substantive offences, electronic-evidence procedures, and mutual legal assistance across its 60-plus state parties.

President Biya signed Decree No. 2019/150 updating the organisation and functioning of ANTIC, explicitly granting it powers of injunction over operators and affirming its mandate to regulate, control, and monitor information-system security, electronic certifications, and ICT ethical use across public and private entities.

Cameroonian authorities cut internet access entirely in the English-speaking North West and South West regions on 17 January 2017; the blackout lasted 93 days and cost the economy at least USD 38 million, exposing how centralised state control of the CAMTEL fibre backbone can be weaponised and triggering lasting digital-rights and cybersecurity debates.

The Prime Minister signed Decree No. 2012/1643/PM fixing the terms and modalities of compulsory security audits for all electronic communications networks and information systems, requiring operators to notify ANTIC of intrusions and to bear audit costs — the key implementing regulation that operationalised the audit mandate in the 2010 Cybersecurity Law.

Cameroon's National Assembly adopted its landmark Cybersecurity and Cybercriminality Law — one of Africa's earliest dedicated cybercrime statutes — criminalising unauthorised access, data fraud, identity theft, child pornography, and online hate speech; mandating security audits for ISPs and operators; granting legal validity to electronic signatures; and designating ANTIC as Root Certification Authority and primary national cybersecurity regulator.

Enacted alongside the Cybersecurity Law, Law No. 2010/013 established the comprehensive regulatory framework for electronic communications in Cameroon, setting sector governance and the obligations for operators and access providers within which all cybersecurity duties apply.