Yes, scraping public data in Egypt is permissible under specific conditions, but it is not unregulated.
Public data accessible via government portals or open platforms may be scraped if done in compliance with Egypt’s data protection and cybercrime laws. However, unauthorized scraping of private or restricted datasets—even if publicly accessible—can trigger legal liability under the Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 151 of 2020) and the Cybercrime Law (Law No. 175 of 2018). The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and the Data Protection Authority (DPA) enforce these rules, with recent 2026 guidance emphasizing automated scraping must not disrupt services or harvest data at scale without consent.
Key Regulations for Scraping Public Data in Egypt
- Personal Data Protection Law (2020): Prohibits scraping personal data without explicit consent, even if publicly available. Violations may result in fines up to EGP 5 million (≈$160,000) or imprisonment under Article 45.
- Cybercrime Law (2018): Criminalizes unauthorized access to systems or data, including aggressive scraping that overloads servers. Penalties include up to 3 years imprisonment and EGP 100,000–1 million fines (Article 15).
- NTRA Guidelines (2026): Require scrapers to register automated tools with NTRA if extracting data at rates exceeding 100 requests per minute from government domains. Non-compliance may lead to IP blocking or legal action.