Cybersecurity · Guinea-Bissau
Cybersecurity regulation in Guinea-Bissau (2026)
Guinea-Bissau shaded by its cybersecurity status
Guinea-Bissau has no standalone cybersecurity or cybercrime legislation, no data protection law, and no breach-notification or incident-reporting obligations in force. The country's regulatory baseline is a 2010 ICT framework establishing the ARN regulator, whose mandate covers telecom and ccTLD administration rather than cybersecurity enforcement. Guinea-Bissau participates in ECOWAS regional cybersecurity initiatives and has signed the AU Malabo Convention, but neither has been transposed into domestic law.
Key points
Guinea-Bissau has enacted no standalone cybersecurity or cybercrime legislation. The 1993 Penal Code contains no provisions addressing computer-related offences, leaving a fundamental legal gap.
The National Regulatory Authority for ICT (ARN), created by Law No. 5/2010, oversees the .gw ccTLD and DNSSEC deployment but has no explicit cybersecurity enforcement or incident-reporting mandate.
Guinea-Bissau has no data protection statute and no dedicated supervisory authority, meaning there are no domestic breach-notification obligations for controllers or processors.
Guinea-Bissau signed the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection (Malabo Convention), which includes cybersecurity and data-protection obligations, but those obligations have not been enacted into domestic legislation.
The ITU Global Cybersecurity Index 2024 placed Guinea-Bissau in Tier 5 (Building) — one of only four African states at this lowest tier — reflecting minimal legal, technical, and organisational cybersecurity measures.
Guinea-Bissau participates in ECOWAS's 2021 Regional Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Strategy and hosted the ECOWAS CSIRT Week in Bissau in October 2022, but has not formally adopted a national cybersecurity strategy.
Guinea-Bissau - other topics
Last verified 5/24/2026 · Orientation, not legal advice - verify against the primary sources linked above. Explore the full world map →