Shura Council passes law to protect personal information

Shura Council members yesterday voted in favour of establishing an official authority concerned with the protection of personal data. This comes as the majority of council members approved a bill that’s aimed at the protection of personal and private information. The bill instructs the issuance of the Personal Information Protection Law, in line with Legislative Decree 30 of the year 2016. It was first approved by the Council’s Legislative and Legal Affairs Committee, which reviewed it with the concerned official authorities over the past few months and recommended the council members yesterday to pass it. The eight-member committee informed the Council in a written statement that the bill would provide legal protection of individual’s privacy, which is a “right guaranteed by the Kingdom’s constitution”.

The law gives the new authority jurisdictions to handle cases and crimes related to unlawful disclosure of personal information and introduces punishments that vary between one-year imprisonment sentences and fines not exceeding BD20, 000.

The law allows the use of personal information for journalistic, artistic or literary purposes, “provided that the information is correct, accurate and subject to updating and correction, and that measures are in place to ensure that it isn’t used for any purpose other than for journalistic, artistic or literary purposes, without violating the applicable legislation on the regulation of the press, printing and publishing”.