Law: There is no general data protection law.

Regulator: There is no general data protection authority.

Summary: At present, Guatemala does not operate a comprehensive legal framework for data protection. However, there is currently a draft data protection law under consideration, Bill No. 6105 of 23 June 2022 for the Approval of the of the Personal Data Protection Law (only available in Spanish here) (the Bill). In the absence of a comprehensive data protection legislative regime, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala has recognized the existence of data privacy as a human right and, at a minimum, guarantees procedures that must be observed when processing personal data.

In addition, Article 31 of the Political Constitution of the Republic of Guatemala 1985 (only available in Spanish here) (the Constitution) provides that each individual has the right to access, know the purposes of, and correct personal data held within public files, records, or Government registries, while Article 24 of the Constitution guarantees the protection of correspondence, documents, and books. Other relevant privacy legislation includes Decree No. 57-2008 on the Law of Access to Public Information (only available in Spanish here) which provides for the regulation of access to information by public bodies.