Turkish Data Protection Law & Cross-Border Data Transfers: What E-Commerce & Healthcare Companies in Türkiye Need to Revisit Now

Cross-border data transfers have become one of the most practical compliance issues under Turkish data protection law, particularly for e-commerce and healthcare businesses.

Following the amendment to Article 9 of the Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data, which entered into force on 1 June 2024, and the secondary legislation published on 10 July 2024, Türkiye moved away from the former transfer model that had often pushed organizations toward explicit consent. The new framework is more structured, but it also requires companies to take a far more disciplined approach to foreign vendors, cloud systems, digital platforms, and international access scenarios.

For many organizations, this is not merely a legal update. It is an operational issue.

A business may think it is simply using a CRM tool, analytics service, patient management software, marketing platform, or customer support solution. In practice, it may also be transferring personal data abroad.

The new legal framework

Under amended Article 9, cross-border transfers are now assessed through a layered system based on:

• adequacy decisions,
• appropriate safeguards, and
• derogations for incidental transfers.

As a rule, where a valid processing condition exists under Article 5 or Article 6, personal data may be transferred abroad either on the basis of an adequacy decision or on the basis of appropriate safeguards. However, where the transfer relies on appropriate safeguards, the framework also requires that the data subject be able to exercise his or her rights and have access to effective legal remedies in the country where the transfer will take place.

At present, there is still no officially announced adequacy list on the Authority’s cross-border transfer page. As a result, most private sector organizations will in practice need to rely on the appropriate safeguards route.

Why this matters for e-commerce

E-commerce companies are naturally exposed to international transfers because their business model is built on digital infrastructure.

Customer data may pass through:

• website analytics tools,
• foreign-based cloud hosting,
• email marketing platforms,
• customer relationship management systems,
• anti-fraud services,
• support ticketing software,
• chat integrations,
• advertising technologies,
• marketplace tools, and
• cookie-based third-party services.

One of the most common compliance mistakes in practice is to treat these tools purely as IT, product, or marketing issues. Under Turkish data protection law, they may also amount to cross-border transfer activities.

The transfer analysis should therefore go beyond the main systems that a company intentionally procures. Hidden or embedded technologies often create the real exposure.

Why the stakes are even higher in healthcare

Healthcare presents a stricter risk profile because health data is special category personal data under Law No. 6698.

This means healthcare providers, digital health platforms, laboratories, medical device service providers, telemedicine operators, and similar actors must assess two distinct legal layers:

1. whether they have a lawful basis to process the data under Article 6; and

2. whether they have a lawful basis and a valid transfer mechanism to transfer that data abroad under Article 9.

These are not the same analysis, and satisfying one does not automatically satisfy the other. Article 9 requires its own assessment.

Cross-border transfers in healthcare may arise through:

• cloud-based patient record systems,
• remote support access,
• international group-company infrastructure,
• diagnostic or imaging platforms,
• research databases,
• wearable-device ecosystems,
• AI-supported health technologies, and
• foreign-hosted communications or scheduling tools.

Because the data involved is often sensitive by nature, healthcare organisations should not treat the use of foreign systems as a routine vendor issue. It is a core regulatory and reputational risk area.

Explicit consent is no longer the easy answer

Under the former transfer logic, many organizations defaulted to explicit consent.

That approach is no longer a reliable shortcut for routine transfer structures.

The amended framework is designed so that regular and structural transfers should primarily be managed through adequacy decisions or appropriate safeguards, rather than through broad consent wording. Explicit consent has not disappeared from the system altogether, but in the cross-border transfer context it now appears within the narrower derogation regime applicable only where no adequacy decision exists and no appropriate safeguard can be provided, and only if the transfer remains incidental and the data subject is informed of the possible risks.

This point is especially relevant for:

• e-commerce membership forms,
• website terms,
• digital onboarding flows,
• patient admission documents, and
• legacy privacy templates that still attempt to cover foreign transfers through broad consent language.

Companies should also keep in mind the Authority’s emphasis that information notices and explicit consent texts must be prepared separately. An information notice is not a substitute for consent, and consent is not a substitute for a valid transfer mechanism. The Authority has also stressed that such texts must be clear, concise, and understandable.

The practical route: appropriate safeguards

In the absence of adequacy decisions, the most relevant tools for private sector actors are generally:

• standard contracts,
• binding corporate rules for intra-group transfers, and
• in some cases, a written commitment letter approved by the Board.

For many organisations, the standard contract route will be the most practical. However, this should not be underestimated as a purely formal exercise.

Compliance requires more than obtaining a signature. It requires:

• identifying the actual transfer flows,
• choosing the correct transfer structure,
• ensuring the selected transfer mechanism reflects operational reality,
• verifying signer authority,
• aligning annexes and technical and organizational measures, and
• notifying the Authority within the prescribed period after signature.

The Regulation expressly states that the Board’s standard contract text must be used without modification. It also requires notification to the Authority within five business days after completion of signatures. Where the parties do not specify who will make the notification, the exporter is responsible by default.

Incidental transfers should not be confused with ordinary business flows

A critical practical point is the meaning of “incidental” transfer.

Under the Regulation and the Authority’s guidance, incidental transfers are those that occur on a single or a few occasions, are not continuous, and do not form part of the ordinary course of business. Accordingly, derogations are not designed to support regular, repeated, or systematic international transfers that are built into an organization’s operating model.

Common pitfalls in practice

For e-commerce, the real issue is often fragmentation.
Legal teams may know that the company uses a foreign CRM, but may have limited visibility over pixels, plug-ins, embedded scripts, session replay tools, fraud engines, or support widgets introduced by marketing or product teams.

For healthcare, the main issue is often under-classification.
Many datasets may look merely operational at first sight, but appointment records, prescription histories, lab interactions, diagnostic information, and treatment notes can all become highly sensitive depending on context.

For both sectors, there is often excessive reliance on GDPR-style global templates.
A foreign vendor’s DPA or EU SCC package does not automatically satisfy the requirements of Article 9 of Law No. 6698. Turkish law now has its own transfer framework, its own procedural rules, and its own approved mechanisms.

What businesses should do now

For organisations operating in e-commerce or healthcare, the immediate question is not whether they transfer personal data abroad “on purpose.” The real question is whether their systems, vendors, workflows, support structures, or onward-transfer chains create foreign access, foreign storage, or cross-border disclosure in practice.

A sensible compliance review should begin with:

• data flow mapping,
• vendor mapping,
• system-by-system transfer analysis,
• dataset classification,
• review of Article 5 and Article 6 legal bases,
• assessment of the applicable transfer mechanism under Article 9, and
• alignment of notices, contracts, and internal governance documents.

This is particularly urgent for businesses that rely heavily on SaaS tools, cloud services, international support teams, shared global infrastructure, or group-company environments.

Final note

The new Turkish transfer regime is more workable than the old one, but it is also less tolerant of informal compliance habits.

For e-commerce, the challenge is the volume of tools and the visibility gap around embedded technologies.

For healthcare, the challenge is the sensitivity of the data and the stricter legal analysis required.

In both sectors, cross-border data transfers should now be treated as a serious governance and compliance issue, not merely as a privacy notice issue.