Art. 78 of the Legislative Decree No. 48 of 2002 Promulgating the Telecommunications Law provides that a licensed operator must provide all technical resources including telecom equipment, systems, and programs relating to its licensed telecom network that allow security agents to have access to the network for protecting national security. In addition, Art. 79 authorizes, in a state of national security or in a declaration of martial law, a competent authority to requisition the telecom services and networks of any licensed operator to address the circumstances. It is not clear whether a court order would be required.

Bahrain has a safe harbour regime in place for intermediaries for copyright infringements. Under Law No. 22 (Section IX), internet service providers (ISPs) are liable if, through their network or system, they are found to have deliberately instigated a copyright infringement violation, or participated in it to a significant degree, or are found responsible for it, having been aware of the infringing activity this. ISPs are not liable when they not control, initiate or direct the transmission of the material that takes place through the systems or networks controlled or operated by them or on their behalf; adopted and reasonably applied measures, including the termination (where appropriate) of accounts of subscribers who repeatedly commit violations; abide by the standard technological measures to identify and protect the material; the ISP does not make any change to the material.

Bahrain has a safe harbour regime in place for intermediaries beyond copyright infringement. The Legislative Decree No. 48 of 2002 Promulgating the Telecommunications Law penalizes transmitting online messages that are offensive to public policy or morals under Art. 75. A telecommunication service provider can be criminally liable if such offences provided for in this Law are committed in its name, for its account or by using its equipment or network as a result of an act, material negligence, consent or acquiescence of any board member, director or any other person responsible within that juristic entity or by those acting in such capacity.

Under the Resolution No. 13 of 2015, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority requires users to provide identification when registering for telecommunications services. The government prohibits the sale or use of unregistered prepaid SIM cards.

The Law No. 30 of 2018 issuing the Personal Data Protection Law, enacted in 2018, covers the provisions for automated data processing, in whole or in part, the general legality framework, the provisions for the transfer of personal data outside the Kingdom, and the establishment and organisation of the competent authority.

According to Art. 9.1 of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA)'s Board of Directors Resolution No. 8, a licensee shall undertake to retain access-related information for one year from the date of each call that is successfully made between two or more parties whether it results in conveying call content or not. Moreover, it is reported that since 2009, the TRA has mandated that all telecommunications companies keep a record of customers’ phone calls, emails, and website visits for up to three years.

Order No. 43 provides that a controller may conduct a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), taking into account the nature, scope, context and purposes of the processing, and high risks of processing on the rights and freedoms of natural persons (Art. 3(1)). Furthermore, Art. 3(3) states that controllers should conduct DPIAs in the following cases:
- Cases stipulated in Art. 22(1) of Law No. 30, or a systematic and extensive evaluation of personal aspects relating to natural persons which is based on automated processing, including profiling, and on which decisions are based that produce legal effects concerning the natural person or similarly significantly affect the natural person;
- When processing on a large scale of special categories of data or of personal data relating instituting and pursuing of criminal proceedings, and related judgements referred to Art. 7 of Law No. 30; or
- When processing amounts to a systematic monitoring of a publicly accessible area on a large scale.

According to Art. 12 of Law No. 30, the transfer of personal data out of Bahrain is prohibited unless the transfer is made to a country or region that provides sufficient protection to personal data. Alternatively, data controllers can also transfer personal data to countries that are not determined to have sufficient protection of personal data under several circumstances, including a permission to be issued by the Authority on a case-by-case basis, the consent of the data subject and the necessity to conclude a contract (Art. 13).
Order No. 42 establishes a list of countries that have been deemed by the Authority to provide an adequate level of data protection. The adequacy list includes 83 countries, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, India, all EU countries, UK, and USA. Controllers may transfer personal data to any country on the adequacy list without needing to obtain any authorisation from the Authority (Art. 2).

Art. 2 of Order No. 45 provides that sensitive personal data should not be processed without the consent of the data subject, unless one of the cases of Art. 5 of Law No. 30 applies. These include:
- The processing is required by the data controllers for their duties and the exercise of their legally prescribed rights in the field of labour relations that binds them to their employees;
- The processing is necessary to protect any person if the data subject, their custodian, guardian, or trustee is not legally able to give their consent, and is subject to obtaining prior permission from the Authority;
- The processed data was provided by the data subject to the public;
- The processing is necessary to initiate or defend any legal rights claim, including what is required in preparation for the matter;
- The processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive medicine, medical diagnosis, provisions of health care, treatment, or management of health care services by a licensed medical practitioner or any person legally bound to maintain confidentiality.
Controllers also have to implement additional organisational rules when processing sensitive personal data including appropriate high-level technical measures to ensure a high degree of protection against secrecy, breach or unlawful processing of such data (Art. 4 of Order No. 45).
Processing is broadly defined in Art. 1 of Law No. 30 and includes disclosing by transmission, dissemination, transference or otherwise making available for others.

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

According to Art. 59 of the Central Bank of Bahrain and Financial Institutions Law of 2006, a licensee must keep accounting records, other records that may be specified by the Central Bank and separate records for each branch abroad providing any of the services that are subject to the law. Insurance and reinsurance companies must keep records as may be specified by the Central Bank, including insurance contracts signed by the company, claims made against it and actions taken thereon, reinsurance contracts entered into by the company, and funds to be maintained according to the law (Art. 59). Moreover, Art. 60 states that the period for which the companies must keep the data is at least ten years and the documents have to be retained at the licensee's main office in Bahrain, or at such other places as the Central Bank may approve.

Art. 26 of the Legislative Decree No. 48 of 2002 provides that a licensee must be incorporated in Bahrain or have a registered branch office in Bahrain. In addition, it provides that, subject to certain exceptions, substantially all of the infrastructure and personnel associated with the provision of the telecommunications service must be located within Bahrain.

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

It is reported that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), the executive authority for the supervision and administration of services in the telecommunications sector, is independent from the government in the decision-making process.

Batelco, the former incumbent telecom operator, underwent a structural separation in 2019 into a wholesale infrastructure unit (BNET) and a retail operator (Batelco). The process for completing the full internal systems and organisational separation is under way, according to Resolution No. 17 Promulgating the Fifth National Telecommunications Plan. The Fifth Telecommunications Plan adopted in 2020 provides that BNET will become the sole fibre network infrastructure company over time. Batelco is partly owned by the government. As reported in 2020, Mumtalakat Holding Company and Social Insurance Organization, both of which are associated with the Bahraini government, own more than 55% of the shares.