According to Art. 130 of Law No. 061-2008/AN, no radio equipment used for the transmission, reception or transmission and reception of signals and correspondence may be imported for use in Burkina Faso unless it has been approved by the Regulatory Authority. To this end, the Authority may carry out any verification to ensure that the equipment complies with the regulations in force.

Telecom companies need to submit their equipment for testing to the regulator or its delegated entity. Under Art. 130 of Law No. 061-2008/AN, no radio equipment used for the transmission, reception or transmission and reception of signals and correspondence may be manufactured, imported or marketed for use in Burkina Faso unless it has been approved by the Regulatory Authority. To this end, the Authority may carry out any verification to ensure that the equipment complies with the regulations in force. Equipment includes hardware and software used to provide electronic communications services.

According to the Art. 37 of Law No. 001-2021/AN, health data allowing the direct or indirect identification of individuals must be stored on national territory. An exception can be granted if the Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (Commission de l'Informatique et des Libertés, CIL) ensures that the use of information and communication technologies for the purpose of processing personal data does not pose a threat to individual or public freedoms and privacy (Art. 56).

Burkina Faso has not joined any agreement with binding commitments to open transfers of data across borders.

Law No. 001-2021/AN provides a comprehensive data protection regime in Burkina Faso. The 2021 Act repealed and replaced Law No. 010-2004/AN on the Protection of Personal Data, enacted in 2004, which made Burkina Faso one of the first adopters of a modern data protection law in the region. The 2021 Act strengthens the protection of the privacy of individuals, including by broadening its geographical scope to offshore data controllers who carry out processing operations from Burkina Faso (irrespective of whether they use local means of processing), by supervising transborder transfers and by providing a more comprehensive right to be informed.

Law No. 45-2009/AN establishes a safe harbour regime for intermediaries for copyright infringements. According to Art. 134, intermediaries are not responsible for information transmitted if they do not initiate the transmission or select the recipient of the transmission and do not select or modify the information transmitted.

Burkina Faso does not have a comprehensive framework in place that provides effective protection of trade secrets, but there are limited measures addressing some issues related to them. In particular, the country has established provisions addressing disclosure, acquisition or use of confidential information in the course of industrial or commercial activities by third parties in Art. 6 of Annex VIII of the Bangui Agreement, which has been ratified by 17 French-speaking States, including Burkina Faso in 2002.

Arts. 5.k, 74.f, 144 and 145 of the Law No. 061-2008/AN impose an obligation for passive infrastructure sharing to deliver telecom services to end users. Moreover, passive infrastructure sharing is practised in the mobile and fixed sectors based on commercial agreements.

The government owns 28.6% of the shares of Moov Africa Burkina.

Arts. 72 and 81 of Law No. 061-2008/AN stipulate that the regulatory authority can take measures to introduce functional and accounting separation for operators with significant market power (SMP) in the telecom market.

Burkina Faso has not appended the World Trade Organization (WTO) Telecom Reference Paper to its schedule of commitments.

Art. 65 of the Law No. 061-2008/AN established an independent regulatory authority for electronic communications. This institution is known as the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Posts (Autorité de Régulation des Communications Electroniques et des Postes, ARCEP). It is reported that this authority is independent from the government in the decision-making process.

According to the Art. 42 of Law No. 001-2021/AN, international transfers cannot be made without the respect of the following conditions:
- a request for authorisation of the Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (Commission de l'Informatique et des Libertés, CIL));
- a signature of a data confidentiality clause and a data reversibility clause to facilitate the complete migration of the data at the end of the contract;
- the implementation of technical and organizational security measures.
Additionally, the transfer can only be made to a foreign country or an international organization if the recipient country or international organization ensures an adequate level of protection equal to the one ensured in Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso is not a signatory of the 1996 World Trade Organization (WTO) Information Technology Agreement (ITA) nor the 2015 expansion (ITA II).

Arts. 111-112 of Decree No. 2017-0049/PRES/PM/MINEFID provide a margin of preference of 10% for local enterprises and enterprises established in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU).