Online safety & content laws in Egypt (2026)

Prime Ministerial Decree No. 816 issued the long-awaited executive regulations for Law 151/2020, operationalizing licensing, breach-notification (72 hours), and cross-border transfer rules with a one-year compliance grace period (full enforcement expected October 2026).

Human Rights Watch documented that between late July and late August 2025 authorities arrested or prosecuted at least 29 people, including TikTok creators, on vague 'public morals' and 'family values' charges under the 2018 Cybercrime Law, illustrating intensified enforcement against social media content.

Authorities escalated content-platform regulation by announcing plans to block all unlicensed platforms within three months and ordering banks to halt financial transfers to platforms operating 'illegally,' enforcing the SCMR licensing regime.

After earlier 'family values' convictions were overturned, Haneen Hossam was sentenced to 10 years and Mawada al-Adham to 6 years on trafficking charges tied to social media videos, cementing the cybercrime law as a tool against online content by women.

An Egyptian court jailed Haneen Hossam and Mawada al-Adham for two years under Articles 25/27 of the 2018 Cybercrime Law for posting 'indecent' videos, setting a precedent for prosecuting social media content as a public-morals offense.

Egypt's first comprehensive data protection statute was published in the Official Gazette, establishing consent requirements, a Personal Data Protection Center, and restrictions on cross-border transfers of personal data processed electronically.

The law created the SCMR and brought online media under regulatory control, treating any personal website, blog, or social media account with 5,000+ followers as a media outlet subject to monitoring and potential blocking for 'fake news.'

Egypt's foundational cybercrime statute mandated 180-day data retention by telecom firms and empowered investigators (with judicial validation) to block websites threatening national security, becoming the principal tool for regulating online content.

Authorities blocked at least 21 sites, including Mada Masr, Al Jazeera and HuffPost, for allegedly 'supporting terrorism' and 'spreading lies', the start of large-scale website blocking that the 2018 laws later codified.

The government severed roughly 88% of internet access and SMS for five days to disrupt protests, the first total shutdown of a country's internet, exposing state control over telecom infrastructure and foreshadowing later content controls.

The foundational telecom statute created the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and required NTRA licensing to operate networks or provide services, the legal backbone enabling state oversight of internet infrastructure and later content controls.