Nicaragua

Summary

Nicaragua has a data protection law (Ley 787, 2012) but enforcement is effectively nil: the designated data-protection body (DIPRODAP — Dirección de Protección de Datos Personales within the Ministerio de Gobernación) was never fully established and remains non-operational as of 2025, confirmed by DLA Piper and DataGuidance. The Ley Especial de Ciberdelitos (Ley 1042, 2020) criminalises unauthorised access to computer systems (Art. 4: 1-3 yr; Art. 5: 2-4 yr; Art. 14: 2-5 yr for violating security of restricted systems). Ley 1219 (reform enacted September 2024, published Gaceta Oficial September 12, 2024) added amendments including increased penalties (up to 15 years for crimes against state security). Copyright is governed by Ley 312 (1999) — closed exceptions, no TDM exception, no sui generis database right. The political environment under the Ortega government means rule-of-law concerns are significant: Ley 1042 has been flagged by Access Now (2020) as a potential tool for suppressing online expression, and the 2024 reform strengthened penalties for ICT-based crimes against "state security." Web scraping of public government data is low formal risk but operates in an unpredictable enforcement context; personal-data scraping triggers Ley 787; authenticated systems and technical circumvention trigger Ley 1042 criminal provisions.