Methodology
How World Watch works
World Watch tracks where 205 countries stand across 8 domains of technology policy, with a dated timeline of the decisions that got them there. This page documents the data sources, the update pipeline, what each status label means, and how to cite the data.
Sources
Status assessments and timeline events are sourced official-first, in this order of preference: government and regulator publications (central banks, securities and data-protection authorities, ministries, official gazettes), legislation and court records, and intergovernmental bodies (EU institutions, BIS, IMF, OECD, FATF). Top-tier wire services (Reuters, Bloomberg, AP, Financial Times) are used only to surface or confirm an event; wherever possible the underlying official source is linked. Every country profile and every timeline event links its sources, and events from government or regulator domains carry an explicit official badge.
Update pipeline
- An automated research pipeline (AI-assisted, web-search grounded) builds each country and domain profile and refreshes the stalest entries daily.
- Official regulator RSS feeds are ingested every 6 hours and routed to the matching country and domain timeline.
- Each profile shows its last verified date. Timeline events carry their own dates: month precision is used when an exact day is not published.
- Statuses are conservative by design: when a framework is genuinely unsettled, the entry says developing, proposed, or unclear rather than overstating maturity.
Status definitions
Each domain uses its own status vocabulary. Colors on the map correspond to these labels.
Crypto & Digital Assets
Is crypto legal and how is it regulated here?
Artificial Intelligence
How does this country regulate AI?
Data & Privacy
What are the data-protection rules here?
Digital Payments & Fintech
How are digital payments and fintech licensed?
Digital Nomad & Residency
Can remote workers get a visa or residency here?
Internet & Online Safety
How is online content and safety regulated?
Cybersecurity
What cybersecurity obligations apply here?
Starting a Business
How easy is it to start a business here?
Scoring, rankings & the Country Index
Two scores are derived from each status: maturity (how developed and clear the framework is; a clear ban is mature, an unclear position is not) and openness (how permissive the position is; regulated or easy scores high, banned or heavily restricted scores low). The Country Index is the average maturity across the domains a country has researched data for, graded A+ to D. Rankings group countries with equal scores into tiers; within a tier, order is alphabetical and does not imply rank.
Limitations
World Watch is orientation, not legal advice. Regulation changes fast, summaries compress nuance, and automated pipelines can lag or err. Always verify against the linked primary sources before acting, and treat the last verified date as part of the data.
How to cite
Preferred attribution: "World Watch by Anurag Verma (anuragverma.co/worldwatch)", with a link to the specific country or domain page you reference. For press or data inquiries, see the contact page.