According to Art. 76 of the General Telecommunications law, the Dominican Telecommunications Institute (INDOTEL), the executive authority for the supervision and administration of services in the telecommunications sector, is independent from the government in the decision-making process.

Under Art. 80 of Law No. 172-13, personal data may only be transferred internationally if the owner of the data expressly authorises such transfer or if such transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract between the owner of the data and the person or entity responsible for the treatment of the personal data. Data transfer is considered a form of 'treatment' of personal data under Art. 6.20 of Law.

The Dominican Republic has not acceded to any agreement with binding commitments to open data transfers across borders. However, Art. 13.2 of DR-CAFTA provides that "Each Party shall ensure that enterprises of another Party may use public telecommunications services for the movement of information in its territory or across its borders and for access to information contained in databases or otherwise stored in machine-readable form in the territory of any Party". Notwithstanding the foregoing, "a Party may take such measures as are necessary to: (a) ensure the security and confidentiality of messages; or (b) protect the privacy of non-public personal data of subscribers to public telecommunications services, subject to the requirement that such measures are not applied in a manner that would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or disguised restriction on trade in services".

Personal Data Protection Law No. 172-13 provides a comprehensive framework for data protection.

Art. 26.2 of the Constitution of the Republic establishes a safe harbour regime for intermediaries for copyright infringements. Chapter XV of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) of 2007 between the United States of America, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua devotes its Art. 27 to the limitations of liability of intermediaries for copyright infringement in the digital environment. This is applicable in the country by mandate of Art. 26.2 of the Constitution of the Republic, which establishes that the rules in force of ratified international conventions shall govern internally. However, it is reported that, in practice, there have been cases in 2013 in which the courts have considered companies liable not only for violating copyright but also for the mere fact of hosting the website where the infringement takes place and, therefore, encouraging the infringement through its economic sponsorship.

A basic legal framework on intermediary liability beyond copyright infringement is absent in the Dominican Republic's law and jurisprudence.

Art. 11.2 of the General Regulation of the Telephone Service stipulates that service providers are under an obligation to request, record, and verify the applicant’s general particulars in order to substantiate their capacity and eligibility to enter into a service contract; for the purposes of this Regulation, telephone service denotes a national or international telecommunications service intended for the transmission of voice, whether fixed or mobile, irrespective of the technology or modality employed in its provision. Should the information supplied by the user prove to be inaccurate, the provider is required to refuse the formation of the contract and to deny the applicant access to the telephone service.

The Dominican Republic has adopted the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty.

The Dominican Republic has adopted the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

Law No. 20-00 provides a framework for effective protection of trade secrets. Chapters I and II of Title VI include a definition and conditions to protect a secret, what constitutes unfair competition related to trade secrets, what are the unfair means of access to a trade secret, information for sales authorisation and the actions that may be brought against this act of unfair competition.

There is an obligation for passive infrastructure sharing in the country to deliver telecom services to end users. It is practised both in the mobile and fixed sectors based on commercial agreements. According to Art. 5 of the Infrastructure Sharing Regulation, passive infrastructure providers shall share passive infrastructures or related facilities requested by the requesting providers, provided that such sharing is feasible from the technical, security and operational point of view. Such sharing shall be done in a non-discriminatory manner at fair and reasonable prices and conditions. Infrastructure owners shall facilitate access to such infrastructure on equal, transparent and non-discriminatory terms to providers that install or operate public telecommunications networks. Infrastructure sharing is effective in both the mobile and fixed sectors.

The Dominican Republic does not mandate functional separation for operators with significant market power (SMP) in the telecom market. However, there has been an obligation to separate the accounts since 1998. According to Art. 30.h of the Law No. 153/1998 - General Telecommunications Law, in case a concessionaire provides several public telecommunications services, it must keep separate accounts for each service, in order to enable the control of fair and effective competition.

Chapter V of the General Telecommunications Law addresses concessions and licences. It is reported that a minimum capital requirement must be satisfied in order to obtain a licence; however, no such requirement has been identified in the relevant legal provisions.

Art. 144 of Law 16-92 establishes that the administrators, managers, directors and other persons exercising administrative or management functions must preferably be of Dominican nationality. On the other hand, Art. 135 establishes that at least 80% of the total number of workers of a company must be composed of Dominicans. Art. 136 establishes that the salaries received by the Dominican workers of a company must amount, as a whole, to at least 80% of the value corresponding to the payment of all the personnel. Exempted from the provisions of this article are the salaries received by workers who perform technical, managerial or directorial tasks.

According to Art. 148 of Law No. 20-00, when the applicant or the holder of an industrial property right has its domicile or headquarters outside the Dominican Republic, it must have a representative domiciled in the country who can be notified of all resolutions, correspondence, writings and any other documentation emanating from the National Office for Industrial Property.