Moldova

Summary

Moldova is an EU candidate (since June 2022) and is actively approximating EU law. Criminal Code art. 259 criminalises illegal access to computerised information where the access results in destruction, deterioration, blocking, or copying of information AND disruption of computer system operations; public pages without technical barriers carry low criminal risk because the cumulative harm-plus-disruption element is not met by routine crawling. Copyright Law No. 230/2022 on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights (in force 9 October 2022) transposes thirteen EU directives including the DSM Directive (2019/790) and is therefore the most EU-aligned copyright framework in this region: it implements TDM exceptions mirroring DSM Arts. 3 (research/scientific) and 4 (general commercial with machine-readable opt-out), and a database producer right analogous to the EU sui generis right. Personal data: Law No. 133/2011 on Personal Data Protection is the current primary instrument; it is being replaced by Law No. 195/2024 which substantially transposes the GDPR and enters into force 23 August 2026 — confirmed from the NCPDP-published English text. The National Centre for Personal Data Protection (NCPDP) is the supervisory authority. No Moldova-specific scraping case law found. Posture: moderate risk; commercial TDM follows EU opt-out model under Law 230/2022; privacy transition to full GDPR alignment on 23 August 2026 creates short-term uncertainty.