Key Concept 5 — Data Transfers

Data that leave your organisation need a reason — and data that leave the country need protection.

Personal data rarely stay inside one system: they go to service providers, group companies, partners and authorities, and very often to servers abroad. Each of these flows has its own rules.

Three kinds of transfers

  • To a processor that works on your behalf, e.g. payroll provider, cloud or IT support: a written contract with instructions, confidentiality and security is required.
  • To another controller that uses the data for its own purposes, e.g. insurer, bank, group company or authority: needs its own legal basis, and the data subjects must be informed.
  • Across borders: the destination country must offer adequate protection, or safeguards such as contractual clauses or group rules must be in place, unless an exception applies.

Easy to overlook: remote access from abroad (e.g. support teams or a parent company) and cloud services hosted outside the country count as transfers, too.

Transfers in your jurisdiction

Mexico

Transfers to third parties, in Mexico or abroad, must be stated in the privacy notice and generally require the data subject's consent, unless an exception in the law applies (e.g. group companies with the same internal rules, or a contract in the interest of the data subject). The recipient takes on the same obligations as the controller. Remissions (remisión) to a processor do not need consent but require a contract.