UAE data protection law, similar to GDPR, likely landing this year

The UAE is looking at implementing a data protection law, similar to EU’s introduction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2008, as part of the UAE National Cybersecurity Strategy.

TRA has launched the 2020-2025 strategy as the country is entering the fifth-generation era in a bid to enable swift and coordinated response to cyber incidents in the UAE.  “Part of the strategy is that data privacy is crucial to the cyber and the UAE is regulating and drafting a data protection law. We will look at the best performing practices performed worldwide; GDPR will be one of the inputs to it. We want to make sure that whatever regulations are put, are easy to be implemented across different sectors,” Mohammad Al Zarooni, Director of Policies and Programs Department at Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE,told TechRadar Middle East, at an event.