Pursuant to Art. 30 of Law No. 18-07, in relation to encryption technology, individuals and organisations that want to acquire and use encryption services must be granted authorisation by the country's Regulatory Authority of Post and Electronic Communications.

According to Arts. 7-8 of Law No. 18-05, any e-commerce activity, which is defined as electronic commerce of goods and services, is subject to registration in the commercial register or in the register of arts and crafts, and to the publication of a website hosted in Algeria with extension ".com.dz". The electronic supplier's website must be equipped with tools allowing its authentication. In addition, Art. 9 requires that the exercise of the e-commerce activity be subject to the registration of the domain name with the services of the National Center of the Commercial Register. This requirement applies to both domestic and foreign e-providers, as stated in Art. 2 of the law, stipulating that the legislation applies to e-commerce transactions when one of the parties to the e-commerce contract is of Algerian nationality, is legally resident in Algeria, is a legal person under Algerian law, or if the contract is concluded or performed in Algeria.

The Supplementary Budget Law for 2018 enabled the Government to introduce a special custom surcharge (named "droit additionnel provisoire de sauvegarde - DAPS") on certain goods imported in Algeria. The decree of Minister of Trade, signed on 26 January 2019, defines the list of goods and the rate applicable to each product line (between 30% and 200% of the value of the goods), which was drawn up by an ad-hoc inter-ministerial committee. The total number of affected products is 1095 and the application started with the publication of the list. ICT products are part of the affected sectors. The law imposed custom surcharge on the following ICT products:
- 8517 - Telephone sets, including telephones for cellular networks or for other wireless networks; other apparatus for the transmission or reception of voice, images or other data, including apparatus for communication in a wired or wireless network (such as a local or wide area network), other than transmission or reception apparatus of HS codes 8443, 8525, 8527 or 8528;
- 8528 - Monitors and projectors, not incorporating television reception apparatus; reception apparatus for television, whether or not incorporating radio-broadcast receivers or sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus.

Decree No. 20-332 stipulates that online media directors must notify the authorities of any "illegal content" published on their platforms. Art. 13 establishes that "the director in charge of the online information organ is required to take the appropriate measures and means to fight against illicit contents (...) especially any content including an incitement to hatred, violence or discrimination because of the regional origin, of an alleged race, religion or political or ideological opinion or gender. The director responsible for the online news organization must notify the relevant authorities of any illegal content."

It is reported that Algeria has a history of its government blocking sites for various reasons, including the prevention of exam cheating. Moreover, web-based Algerian media outlets have been required to be based within the country and they have been asked to inform authorities of any "illegal content". Some of the websites that have been blocked in the past include YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as news websites such as France 24 and Al-Jazeera.

The indicator "6.2.4 - Government Internet shut down in practice" of the V-Dem Dataset, which measures whether the government has the technical capacity to actively make internet service cease, thus interrupting domestic access to the internet or whether the government has decided to do so, has a score of 2 in Algeria. This corresponds to "The government shut down domestic access to the Internet several times this year."

Art. 11 of Law No. 09-04 requires ICT service providers to store data allowing the identification of users of their services for a period of one year after the registration. This requirement covers all service providers, defined in Art. 2 to include any public or private entity which offers users of its services the possibility of communicating by means of a computer system and/or a telecommunications system and any other entity processing or storing computer data for communication services or their users.

It is reported that every user of any SIM card, whether prepaid or postpaid, and regardless whether the user is a local resident or a visitor, has to be registered and as such has to provide official ID (ID card, passport, visa) and a copy of the same ID and an Algerian address, which can be that of a hotel.

According to Art. 12 of Law No. 09-04 ISPs, internet service providers shall set up technical devices to limit access to distributors containing information contrary to public order or morality and to inform subscribers thereof. They are also obliged to intervene, without delay, to remove the contents to which they authorize access in case of infringement of the law and to make them inaccessible as soon as they become aware of it directly or indirectly. Residents can face criminal charges as provided for in Art. 11 of the law for posting or allowing the posting of certain content.

Algeria has a safe harbour regime in place beyond intermediaries for copyright infringements. Art. 12 of Law No. 09-04 requires internet service providers to intervene, without delay, to remove the content to which they authorize access in the event of a violation of the laws, store it or make it inaccessible as soon as they become aware of it directly or indirectly.

According to Art. 3 of Law No. 09-04, subject to the legal provisions guaranteeing the secrecy of correspondence and communications, implementation of technical devices carrying out operations of surveillance of electronic communications, collection and recording in real time of their content as well as searches and seizures in a computer system may be carried out for purposes of protection of public order, for investigations or after judicial request. Art. 4 lists instances when such surveillance may be carried out, including:
- to prevent offenses qualified as terrorist or subversive acts and offenses against State security;
- when there is information on a probable attack on a computer system representing a threat to public order, national defence, State institutions or the national economy;
- for the purposes of investigations and judicial information when it is difficult to arrive at results relevant to the research in progress without resorting to electronic surveillance;
- in connection with the execution of requests for international legal assistance.

Algeria has a safe harbour regime in place for intermediaries for copyright infringements. Art. 12 of Law No. 09-04 requires internet service providers to intervene, without delay, to remove the content to which they authorize access in the event of a violation of the laws, store it or make it inaccessible as soon as they become aware of it directly or indirectly.

The country has a comprehensive data protection regime in place with Law 18-07 of June 2018.

Art. 11 of Law No. 09-04 requires ICT service providers to store data allowing the identification of users of their services and data enabling the recipient(s) of the communication to be identified as well as the addresses of the sites visited for a period of one year after the registration. This requirement covers all service providers, defined in Art. 2 to include any public or private entity which offers users the possibility of communicating by means of a computer system and/or a telecommunications system; and any other entity processing or storing computer data for communication services or their users.

Art. 10 of Decision No. 48/SP/PC/ARPT/17 provides that in carrying out the activity covered by its authorisation, the service provider is subject to the obligations to establish its infrastructure on national territory and guarantee that it is set up using equipment incorporating the most recent and proven technologies; to guarantee that customer data is hosted and stored on national territory; to provide services via infrastructures specifically declared for this authorisation; to guarantee a back-up solution for data hosted or stored; and to keep a customer identification file.
Service provider refers to any natural or legal person who has been granted authorisation to establish and operate hosting and storage services for computerised content for the benefit of remote users as part of cloud computing services, in compliance with the requirements set out in the legislation and regulations in force.