New Personal Data Protection Law in Oman
Why This Privacy Law is Important:
2021 saw considerable progress in the Middle East with regards to data protection laws, and 2022 has picked up where we left off with a new data protection law in the Sultanate of Oman. The Law on the Protection of Personal Data (PDPL), Oman’s first comprehensive data protection law, was published in the Official Gazette on February 13, 2022. Its elements bring Oman’s regulatory environment into close alignment with global trends, and businesses have until February 9, 2023 to comply with this new legislation.
Overview:
The law’s 32 articles include data protection principles, a requirement to appoint a data protection officer (DPO), data subject rights, controller and processor obligations, and penalties for breaching its requirements.
Executive regulations will be forthcoming from the Minister of Transport, with the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology (MCTIT) identified as the regulatory agency responsible for enforcement of the law’s provisions.
The law grants data subjects (“data owners”) numerous rights, including:
- Not to be subject to processing without consent
- To withdraw consent
- To rectify, update, or block personal data
- To access personal data
- To data portability
- To erase personal data unless processing is necessary for the purpose of preservation or national documentation
- To be informed of any breach to their personal data and mitigating measures taken in this regard
Data controllers and processors must determine the risks to data owners that could arise during processing of their data, create and implement technology and organizational processes to securely transfer data and process it in accordance with the provisions of the law, as well as any future regulations issued by the Minister of Transport.
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