Costa Rica Personal Data Protection Law — Law No. 8968

Why it Matters

Costa Rica Personal Data Protection Law — Law No. 8968 ensures organizations protect individual privacy while supporting robust data governance and responsible processing practices.

Key benefits include:

• Strengthen data protection practices

Promote robust safeguards and responsible processing to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of personal data.

• Enhance compliance readiness

Support consistent adherence to legal obligations and simplify the demonstration of compliance in audits or regulatory reviews.

• Support data subject rights

Enable transparent management of data subject requests for access, rectification, and deletion, fostering trust with individuals.

• Reduce risk of data breaches

Mitigate the impact of unauthorized access or disclosures by requiring appropriate technical and organizational security controls.

• Facilitate international data transfers

Enable secure and lawful cross-border data sharing, supporting business operations with global or multinational requirements.

How it Works

The Costa Rica Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 8968) is structured as a statutory privacy framework that defines core data protection principles, controller/processor obligations, data subject rights, security safeguards, and enforcement mechanisms. It outlines lifecycle requirements—collection, processing, retention, transfer—and combines prescriptive rules with risk-based security controls, breach notification duties, and cross-industry compliance obligations.

Organizations apply the law by inventorying processing activities, conducting risk assessments and DPIAs, and implementing technical and organizational security controls and security practices. Teams document policies and consent records, map controls to legal obligations, perform periodic audits and monitoring, manage incident response and notifications, and use evidence to demonstrate governance and ongoing risk management.

Within SmartSuite, teams can operationalize Law No. 8968 by mapping statutory requirements to control libraries, maintaining risk registers and DPIA records, governing policies, collecting evidence, tracking remediation workflows, and generating audit-ready reports and dashboards to support compliance monitoring, breach tracking, and regulator requests.

Key Elements

• Data Subject Rights and Access

Specifies individual entitlements to access, update, or request deletion of their personal information.

• Consent and Lawful Processing Principles

Outlines requirements for obtaining valid consent and ensuring all data processing is legally justified.

• Data Security Measures

Describes organizational and technical controls for protecting personal data against unauthorized access or breaches.

• Cross-Border Data Transfer Rules

Defines conditions and safeguards for transferring personal information outside Costa Rica's jurisdiction.

• Governance and Accountability Controls

Establishes responsibilities, policies, and oversight structures for compliance with data protection obligations.

• Breach Notification and Response

Organizes processes for reporting, managing, and remediating unauthorized disclosures of personal data.

Framework Scope

Costa Rica Personal Data Protection Law — Law No. 8968 is implemented by organizations collecting or processing personal data within Costa Rica, including both public and private entities. It governs personal data processing activities, associated information systems, and documentation of data flows, and is typically used when complying with privacy requirements, ensuring data governance, and demonstrating control effectiveness.

Framework Objectives

The Costa Rica Personal Data Protection Law — Law No. 8968 establishes clear legal requirements for safeguarding personal data and supporting privacy governance.

Protect individuals' personal data through robust security controls and safeguards

Enhance compliance with data protection and privacy regulations

Promote transparent data processing and informed consent management practices

Strengthen cybersecurity and risk management to reduce unauthorized data access

Support governance frameworks that ensure accountability and oversight

Enable greater audit readiness and resilience against data breaches

Framework in Context

Costa Rica's Law No. 8968 aligns substantively with international privacy principles (GDPR, Brazil's LGPD and Council of Europe Convention 108+), sharing rights-based data protections and cross-border transfer considerations. Organizations implement it for regulatory compliance, privacy program development, contractual data transfers, and to demonstrate governance to regulators, partners, and auditors.

Common Framework Mappings

Organizations map Costa Rica's personal data law to international privacy and security frameworks to harmonize controls, demonstrate cross-border compliance, and streamline risk management and data subject rights obligations.

Mapped frameworks include:

APEC Privacy Framework

Brazil Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD)

Council of Europe Convention 108+

EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

ISO/IEC 27001

ISO/IEC 27701

NIST Privacy Framework

OECD Privacy Guidelines