What was CBDDO?
Important: CBDDO was closed by Presidential Decree No. 183, published in the Official Gazette on 28 March 2025; its functions, including public-sector digital transformation, e-Government and the promotion of AI applications, were largely transferred to the Cybersecurity Presidency. The entry below describes the Office’s role before closure and the frameworks it left behind.
The Cumhurbaşkanlığı Dijital Dönüşüm Ofisi (CBDDO): Presidential Digital Transformation Office: was established by Presidential Decree No. 1 (2018) as the central policy body for Türkiye’s digital agenda. It coordinated national strategy across e-government (e-Devlet), national AI strategy, open data, cybersecurity and digital identity infrastructure, reporting directly to the Presidency alongside BTK (regulator) and the Ministry of Industry and Technology.
Key mandates before closure
- National AI Strategy 2021-2025: 119-action roadmap covering talent, R&D, sectoral applications.
- e-Devlet platform: centralised citizen services portal (turkiye.gov.tr).
- Open Data Portal: public dataset publication standards.
- Digital Türkiye Card: consolidated digital ID initiative.
- Cybersecurity strategy and incident coordination.
Implications for startups and corporates
Guidance issued by CBDDO (e.g., the AI ethics guide and the Information and Communication Security Guide) is not directly binding but remains a reference in public procurement and sub-regulation. After the closure, follow the Cybersecurity Presidency’s output for this field, and the 2026 Artificial Intelligence Action Plan for national AI policy.
Do: check contract and tender requirements built on legacy CBDDO guidance against the Cybersecurity Presidency’s current rules; align AI governance posture with the current action plan.
Don’t: treat CBDDO as an active counterpart; its functions have sat elsewhere since 28 March 2025.
Working with the digital-state stack
For companies selling into or integrating with Turkish public digital infrastructure, the frameworks left from the CBDDO era still function as de facto regulation: the information- and communication-security guide (BİG rehberi) sets hosting, encryption and personnel standards that flow into public tenders and, through them, into private subcontracts; KamuNet and interoperability requirements shape architecture; and cloud placement of public data follows criticality classifications that effectively localise significant workloads. Startups building govtech or selling SaaS to institutions should price compliance into delivery: certification, on-prem or local-cloud variants, and security clearances are procurement preconditions, not post-signature details. The practical reading: in Türkiye, public-sector product strategy cannot be set without aligning with these frameworks and with the Cybersecurity Presidency that now holds them.
Sources. Presidential Decree No. 183 (Official Gazette 28 March 2025); Presidential Decree No. 1 (2018).