In September 2025, a favorable opinion from the National Security Commission of the Congress of the Republic to approve a cybersecurity law ignited the conversation not only in the Legislature, but also on social networks in Guatemala.
Although initiative 6347 seeks to define computer crimes and establish sanctions, at the time the discussion stalled, among other reasons, due to sectors of civil society that requested greater debate.
Initiative 6347 contemplates penalties from six years in prison, the creation of the Computer Security Incident Response Center of Guatemala (C-SIRT-GT) and a prosecutor’s office specialized in cybercrime for criminal investigation, formulation of requirements and litigation of crimes contemplated in the digital sphere.
Citizen distrust
At the end of that same month of September last year, Four analyzes from different think tanks concluded that, as it stood, the law could affect fundamental rights and weaken trust in the digital environment, due to the lack of preventive mechanisms.
But this distrust was not only reflected in the private, legal and academic sectors, in public positions.
According to the DataLab report for Guatemala No Se Detiene (April 2026), which carried out a digital listening on conversations related to cybersecurity between 2023 and March 2026, “the conversation in Guatemala reflects that the laws linked to the digital environment are not discussed only from a technical or legal perspective, but from a deeply social, political and citizen reading.”
The report adds that “the audience evaluates the initiatives not only by their formal objective, but by the trust generated by their promoters, the moment in which they emerge and the impact they could have on rights and freedoms.”
Although there is a divided conversation about strengthening the State’s capacity to combat digital crimes, mentions on digital platforms, the report indicates, reveal genuine user concerns about privacy, censorship and state control.
Rejection of state control
The universe of mentions by Guatemalan users about cybersecurity on X, Facebook, TikTok and online news was divided into two large fields for this analysis: the micro and the macro.
According to DataLab, the micro covers direct threats to the user in their digital presence and transactions in virtual environments, while the macro corresponds to when the conversation addresses cybersecurity as an issue of public policy, national security and digital infrastructure.
In the latter, although it was not the majority in the total of mentions – since the largest volume of conversation was dedicated to frauds and scams that occurred to the user or someone they knew -, 1 out of every 4 mentions (23.6%) in the macro topic was about the laws that are discussed in the Congress of the Republic.
While the initiative known as the Data Protection Law had a positive sentiment of 58% in the conversation, the cybersecurity law registered a 35% negative sentiment.
According to the report itself, “digital initiatives receive better acceptance when they are perceived as citizen protection mechanisms, and generate greater rejection when they are associated with control, censorship or political shielding.”
What is said about the initiatives?
Both initiatives—6347, on computer crimes, and 6103, on data protection—generated high digital conversation in Guatemala, with reaches of at least 2.4 million and 1.1 million mentions, respectively.
In the case of initiative 6347, a reaction of distrust and polarization predominates. Although it seeks to regulate computer crimes, the conversation focuses more on fears about state control, censorship and political corruption. Users question Congress, fear surveillance and restrictions on freedom of expression, and believe there are more urgent problems in the country. However, personal experiences (fraud, hacking, scams) also appear that show the need for regulation.
For its part, initiative 6103 is perceived as a pending need, with the expectation of aligning with international standards. The main concern is not political, but practical: the commercial misuse of personal data. Users denounce the circulation and sale of information without consent, mention cases such as commercial calls, use of data by credit bureaus and lack of clarity about the destination of the information collected.
Together, both conversations reflect a clear tension: the need for digital regulation is recognized, but there is distrust in how the State implements it and concern about possible abuses, especially in matters of control and management of personal data.
When is the conversation activated?
In addition to the legislative discussion, users also react to incidents of a national and institutional nature. According to DataLab, the conversation is led by the media, with users who amplify and replicate this news on social networks.
Unlike the other segment, dominated by personal experiences of fraud, this is activated by events of high institutional or political impact, which position cybersecurity as an issue of national security and digital governance, the document indicates.
Among the topics discussed in this section, cyber attacks on State institutions are identified, such as the one that occurred against the Attorney General of Guatemala, Consuelo Porras, in June 2024.
It was also activated based on reports released in April 2025 about attacks on systems of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attributed to foreign actors linked to digital espionage and occurring in 2022. At that time, this issue was related as an economic opportunity linked to the development of the technology sector.
“There was a lack of awareness”
For Ana Isabel Antillón, leader of the Legal Certainty table of Guatemala No Se Detiene, it is important “that the legislation is drafted appropriately, granting powers to the State institutions, which are responsible for ensuring the maintenance of freedoms and rights, as well as establishing their limits, so that the content is understandable for the population.”
Specifically regarding digital legislation, consider that every time legislation is issued it implies the recognition of rights, but also the limitation of others.
“That is what laws are for,” he indicates, “to order the development of society, especially in technological matters, where we are used to maintaining a relationship with social networks or with applications that range from photo editing to banking services.” He adds that there was a lack of awareness and socialization in the discussion of both laws – data protection and cybersecurity.
It exemplifies that banking warns about risks such as phishing. “However, many people do not understand this term and ignore it, believing that it will not affect them. Therefore, it is necessary to explain it in more accessible terms,” he says.
He points out that “international experts point out that the first step is to approve a data protection law, followed by a cybersecurity law, and subsequently other complementary regulations.” In the case of Guatemala, there is no legislation in force on the matter.
With the results of DataLab’s listening report, it calls on the powers of the State.
“The Executive has the responsibility for implementation through its institutions, while the Judicial Branch must be in charge of the sanction processes,” he indicates. “The Congress of the Republic, for its part, must collect the positions and knowledge of the different sectors and articulate this information.
Its function is to integrate the perspectives of the Executive, the Judiciary and the different entities of society with an interest in the topic” he concludes.
How was the study done?
DataLab’s study on user conversations about cybersecurity was conducted using social listening technologies focused on Guatemala, to track digital conversation about online scams, electronic fraud, data theft, phishing, and topics related to cybersecurity and related laws.
Keywords, phrases and synonyms were used to identify mentions in two main sources: social networks and digital platforms (social stream), as well as media and information sites (mainstream).
The analysis covers the period from January 1, 2023 to March 14, 2026, with a total of 43.22 thousand mentions. Each mention corresponds to web content that matches the defined terms or location tracking and was classified according to its sentiment as positive, negative or neutral.
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