Yes, web scraping is generally legal in Colombia, provided it complies with data protection, copyright, and cybersecurity laws. Courts have not yet issued definitive rulings, but the absence of explicit prohibitions suggests permissibility under existing frameworks. However, unauthorized scraping of personal data or proprietary content may trigger liability under the Ley de Protección de Datos Personales (Ley 1581 de 2012) and the Código Civil.
Key Regulations for Web Scraping in Colombia
- Data Protection (Ley 1581/2012): Scraping personal data without consent violates Habeas Data rights. Controllers must ensure lawful bases (e.g., legitimate interest) under Decreto 1074/2015.
- Copyright Law (Ley 23/1982): Extracting copyrighted content without permission may constitute infringement. Fair use exceptions (e.g., criticism) are narrowly interpreted.
- Cybersecurity (Ley 1273/2009): Aggressive scraping that overloads servers or bypasses security measures (e.g., CAPTCHAs) could violate access interference provisions.
The Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC) enforces data protection, while the Dirección Nacional de Derecho de Autor monitors copyright compliance. Recent 2026 draft amendments to Ley 1581 propose stricter penalties for unauthorized data processing, including scraping. Businesses should implement robots.txt compliance, rate limiting, and anonymization protocols to mitigate risks.