THE LEGAL LANDSCAPE OF CROSS-BORDER DATA FLOWS IN DIGITAL TRADE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INDONESIA AND PAKISTAN
Abstract
Indonesia and Pakistan deal with distinct obstacles when managing bordering data activities in light of competing domestic requirements and global digital business needs. This research evaluates the legal systems in both states by investigating significant obstacles and opportunities involved in managing international data movement. The research employs the Integrative Literature Review (ILR) strategy to combine digital innovation, globalization, and trade law studies while focusing on Indonesia and Pakistan. The Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) in Indonesia and the Personal Data Protection Bill (PDPB) of Pakistan encounter multiple problems while executing their provisions and achieving international standards compliance. The capability to enable safe cross-border data movement remains limited because of data local storage rules, along with disorder in monitoring practices and weak data security and privacy safeguards. Multiple strategic changes have been introduced to reset data localization standards, reinforce regulatory measures, and improve law compatibility with international benchmarks, together with enhanced public-private information-sharing programs. The implementation of these measures, parallel to the GDPR and APEC CBPR standards, will improve the legal frameworks, allowing both nations to enhance data transfer efficiency and digital economy participation with citizen privacy protection.
Keywords: Digital trade; Cross-border data flows; Data protection laws; E-commerce; Legal frameworks
